


Provenance

by cactusonastair



Series: Love in a Time of Cold War [1]
Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Assets & Handlers, Canon-Typical Violence, Homophobia, Hurt/Comfort, Illya Whump, JFK assassination, Love Confessions, M/M, Mission Fic, Napoleon Whump, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-10
Updated: 2018-03-30
Packaged: 2018-08-30 05:12:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 41,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8519812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cactusonastair/pseuds/cactusonastair
Summary: Napoleon Solo is in love with Illya Kuryakin. He knows it. Gaby knows it. Illya presumably does not know it, otherwise Napoleon would be dead. It's not just Illya's rejection Napoleon fears. The CIA and KGB would never brook their top agents canoodling with each other. And who the hell knows what Waverly will think.No, it's better for all concerned that he keeps his mouth firmly shut.Then a mission unexpectedly unravels, things spiral out of Napoleon's control, and all his best resolutions turn to dust.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Additional warning: While there is no on-screen rape/non-con in this story, there is non-consensual nudity and threats of rape.

"How's this for an idea, Peril?"

Strictly speaking, there was no need for Napoleon Solo to ask for his Russian partner's opinion, since any product of his fertile brain was automatically guaranteed to be an _absolute corker_ , as their very British boss Mr. Waverly would put it. Still, diplomacy was everything when it came to Cold War relations.

"How about I train you up in the fine art of burglary, so that next time, _I'm_ the one at the soirée dressed in the tux, while _you're_ perched on a window-sill freezing your ass off?"

The opinion that came back wasn't Kuryakin's, however.

"Really, Solo?" Gaby's voice, even filtered through the miniature earpiece, sounded distinctly unimpressed. "You couldn't even wait to get inside before you started monologuing? Maybe if you concentrated on the task at hand, you'd get inside quicker? Plus, it's Mexico City in December, what on earth are you complaining about?"

"Firstly, I _am_ inside —" Napoleon pried the window open, and bent reality to word by sliding down onto — ooh, nice, plush carpet, perfect for breaking and entering — "secondly, it doesn't count as a monologue while you're responding, and thirdly, I'll have you know it's very windy out there." He shut the window firmly but silently, luxuriating in the resultant warmth.

"Ignore him," Illya advised, his voice rumbling so low the earpiece was having trouble picking up the frequency over the background of laughter and string music. "Cowboy is always playing to an audience. And if guards hear, is his problem, not ours."

Napoleon nobly chose to refrain from responding to the callousness of that statement, and returned to his original train of thought. "So how about it, Peril? Or are you deliberately choosing to remain the inferior spy?"

A small explosion told him the shaft had hit home. " _I_ am better spy. _You_ are better thief. But only because I am not thief at all. And believe me, Cowboy, I much prefer to exchange places."

Napoleon could well believe it. Illya's _modus operandi_ at parties was to select a spot with good sight lines, prop himself against the wall, then establish an exclusion zone by glowering at anyone who ventured within a fifteen-foot radius, save a certain German chop-shop girl.

"You would rather Gaby be on my arm than yours, you mean?" Napoleon teased.

"I am not on his arm, Solo, so the question is moot," Gaby said archly, forestalling the paroxysm of anger. "Illya, you keep an eye on Salazar while I get us a couple of drinks. And Solo, you'd better locate that safe before I get back!"

"Yes, ma'am," Napoleon replied smartly. Illya's response wasn't audible, but Napoleon knew her instruction would be obeyed. After six months of working together, Gaby had the Russian bear wrapped around the little finger. Hell, he'd been in her thrall from day one.

And yet, somehow, they were still not an item.

Unless, of course, they were being extremely discreet. But no, Napoleon would surely have found out. He was too perceptive about relationships, and too vested in the outcome, to let something like that slip under his radar. And he knew that if Illya didn't get his act together fast, someone else would come along and sweep Gaby away. Or she would sweep someone else away. After all, she'd never been shy about getting what she wanted.

Napoleon flicked on his penlight, took in the room with a single practiced glance. Francisco Salazar was a drug lord turned information broker who aspired to play on the same field as the CIA, KGB, MI6, Mossad, and his delusions of grandeur were self-evident in the expensive yet tacky furnishings of his study. Case in point: the eleven stuffed animal heads grimacing down at Napoleon from their wooden mounts. The man couldn't even shoot, according to Waverly's briefing. He was clearly compensating for something.

"His grandfather was disowned from one of Mexico's most noble families. It's safe to say that he's desperate to regain his status in polite society," Waverly had told them, his smile wry and perhaps a touch rueful, as if to say: some disinherited scions cope by amassing a fortune through the drug trade; others go out into the world and start their own international spy agencies.

Once his fortune had been made Salazar had sought respectability by building a massive mansion in one of Mexico City's most exclusive suburbs and throwing lavish parties for the elite of DF society. He'd made good with the law by snitching on his former associates, which was perhaps the motivation for the ridiculously high wall that ringed the property and the legion of armed men who guarded it. Not that either had been sufficient to keep Napoleon out. He'd also switched to the slightly more genteel profession of "information brokerage" — "blackmail, the rest of us would call it," Waverly had said, wrinkling his nose in obvious distaste.

However new he was to the trade, Salazar had managed to stumble onto a good thing. "Salazar intercepted a coded message left at a dead-drop in the _Monumento a la Independencia_ ," Waverly had said, the official Spanish name for the angel-topped victory column in the center of the city tripping easily off his tongue. "He's demanding an exorbitant ransom from the original sender, who seems very eager to get it back. We want to have a look at the message before that happens."

"What is message about?" Peril had asked.

"If we knew, Mr Kuryakin, there would be no need to see it, would there?" Waverly had said mildly.

"And the source?"

"Currently anonymous to us, and something we're anxious to establish. Their identity will only be clear upon decryption, so do try and get the message out in one piece if you can possibly manage it, Mr Solo."

So. Napoleon was looking for a coded message, possibly a tiny slip of paper, possibly even a microdot, that he wouldn't be able to read, whose whereabouts could only be pinpointed to "somewhere within this hulk of a house", which was crawling with Salazar's guests and guards alike.

Napoleon had seen more impossible missions in his time, and he'd succeeded at every one. He rubbed his gloved hands together in anticipation.

First stop: the safe. Too obvious, perhaps, but it couldn't be overlooked. Smarter men than Salazar had been more careless, and paid for it at Napoleon's hand. He went straight up to the Seurat behind the desk — a passable imitation, but if Salazar had paid full market price for the original he was an ass — and lifted it off the wall.

"There you are, my beauty." At least Salazar had reasonable taste in safes. Gryphons were fairly new to the market, made by a small American company challenging the might of their European counterparts, but word on the street was they posed a pretty serious challenge. So, about 30 seconds then. He glanced at his watch.

"I'm back," Gaby announced. "Have you found the safe yet?"

"Quiet," Napoleon chided, pressing his ear against the safe, listening as the wheels tumbled and sang. "There. Ha! Thirty seconds, on the nose."

"Did you deactivate alarm?" Illya said gravely.

"Oh, very funny, Peril. Gaby, please punish him properly for me?"

"All right," Gaby said. "Come, Illya, let's dance."

"What? Why?" Napoleon grinned to himself at the note of chagrin in Peril's voice. The swell of the music grew louder, indicating that he'd actually let himself be pulled into the crowd of dancers.

"Because I think I just spotted an operative from the local CIA station in the crowd, who I assume will recognize us, and if he sees that it's just the two of us loitering around, he'll be wondering where Solo is and what he's up to. Can you still see Salazar from here?"

" _Da_ ," Peril replied in the grumpiest of voices.

"Would that CIA operative be one Marvin Johnson, by any chance?" Napoleon asked casually as he rifled through the contents of the safe, which consisted mostly of stacks of letters and photographs, neatly divided into annotated dockets. His eyebrows went up as he flicked through some of the photos. Waverly had been right on the money in characterizing Salazar's new occupation. Napoleon selected a few of the more scandalous snapshots and slid them into a pocket of his tactical gear for future perusal. Salazar would hardly miss them.

"Yes, Johnson. You know him?" Gaby asked.

"To a degree. Sanders sent me here on a couple of missions, in '59 and '61. We worked together."

"You trust him?" Peril grunted.

"He's close to Sanders, so no. Pity, really, since Johnson's an absolute beast in the sack."

Napoleon waited for the inevitable offended splutter from Illya, and got it.

"Jesus, Solo, I did _not_ need that mental image!" Gaby groaned.

Peril's voice was stiff when he condescended to speak again. "I still do not see why this is necessary. Local KGB Rezident is also present. I spoke to him earlier while Gaby was charming her way into Salazar's inner circle. I did not feel need to break into dance."

"Relax, Illya, you're doing just fine," Gaby soothed. "Well, Solo? Is there anything in the safe?"

"Regrettably, nothing that resembles a coded message," Napoleon said, slipping a sheaf of unmarked peso notes into his pocket where they nestled next to the blackmail papers. He shut the safe, listened as the tumblers jumped back into place, pulled up a chair. "So. Any bright ideas? If you were a coded message, where would you hide?"

"If I were Salazar, I would keep it on my person," Peril said.

"But Salazar isn't you, Illya, he's supposed to be something of a physical coward. I'm not sure he'd take that risk," Gaby objected.

"What's the best-guarded room in the house that you've seen?" Napoleon asked, peering down the open jaw of the tiger that hung over the safe.

"Salazar took me and a few other guests into the basement to see a Rembrandt. 'Portrait of Jacob de Gheyn III', I think? There were four guards flanking it."

Napoleon snorted. "I expect it was another fake, like this Seurat here?" he said as he hung it back on the wall.

"No, it seemed genuine enough," Gaby said, a shrug in her voice.

Napoleon stopped short. "He keeps a _Rembrandt_ in his basement?" He reviewed what he knew about the Jacob III. Painted in 1632. One of a pair of companion pieces, one of Jacob and the other of his friend. Stolen just last year from a gallery in London. Conveniently travel-sized at 10 by 12 inches. _Perfect._

Gaby sensed the looming danger. "When I say 'basement', I mean something more like an underground gallery. Well-guarded. With many guards. Did I say four? I meant _twenty_ -four. Armed to the teeth."

Napoleon made a few deft adjustments to his gear, zipping his flak jacket up to the collar, whipping a beret out of a pocket and parking it on his head at a jaunty angle. "Peril, you've been monitoring the movements of the guards, haven't you? Any in the corridor outside the study?"

"Next patrol will pass in one minute thirty-seven seconds," Peril reported promptly. "Approaching from east wing."

Napoleon mentally reviewed the blueprints to the mansion. "Plenty of time, then," he said cheerfully, cracking the door open a minute fraction.

"Oh God, you're going to try and steal it, aren't you? Solo, you're here to work, remember? The coded message?"

"Just a peek, I promise. And who's to say there isn't another safe behind the Rembrandt?"

"It'd have to be a very tiny safe," Gaby grumbled. "Fine. But no art theft! The mission is the message. Understand?"

She fed him directions as Napoleon took a quick look up and down the corridor, shut the door behind him, and straightened his back to an approximation of the guards he'd spent the morning observing. He marched up to the top of the grand, sweeping staircase. Two men stood guard midway up the steps. There were no visible guns, but Napoleon spotted the distinctive outline of a Luger tucked against the right hip of the nearer one. Still, their orders were presumably to keep guests from trespassing upstairs, not to prevent intruders from making their escape, and as long as Napoleon kept out of the range of their peripheral vision, he'd be fine. So he gave in to temptation and peered over the balcony.

If the goal was to keep rival spies from spotting them, they must have failed, because Gaby and Peril were easily the most eye-catching couple amid the swirling mass of dancers. Gaby was radiant in a sleek Dior dress of rippling silk. Its fiery red coupled marvelously with the emerald pendant — a gift from Napoleon — that glittered around her neck. And as for Illya —

Peril scrubbed up well, Napoleon had to concede, and Ermenegildo Zegna could make anyone look good. He and Gaby were making a surprisingly decent go at the waltz, though Napoleon put that down to Gaby's talent at dance. She managed to make them look like a natural couple, despite the absurd height difference.

They twirled in perfect unison, Gaby smiling sunnily up at Illya, her left hand resting lightly on his shoulder, the ring on her fourth finger glinting in the light from the massive chandelier. Despite Peril's earlier objections, his lip curled gently upwards as he followed her lead, his hand on her slim waist somehow looking incongruously massive and right at home, all at the same time.

They made an alluring tableau. Napoleon could have stood and watched them forever, until Peril glanced up and spotted him.

"Patrol will come round corner in thirty-two seconds," warned the human metronome.

"Yeah, yeah. Plenty of time."

Gaby forcibly twisted Peril around, against the beat of the music, to glare up at Napoleon. "For all your keenness to see that Rembrandt, you sure seem to be taking your time, Solo."

"A Rembrandt is rare. Seeing the two of you dance is even rarer."

Peril twisted them round again. "Where did you get hat?" he demanded.

"I stole one of your sadly overpopulated collection of caps, cut it down to size, and dyed it black." Seeing the look of indignation cross Peril's face, Napoleon grinned. "Just kidding. I took it off the guards' clothesline this morning when I came to reconnoiter."

Peril relaxed. "Twenty seconds."

"All right, all right, I'm going." He shot them a smart salute, then made his way down the corridor, slipping out of view just as the patrol rounded the corner. Following Gaby's directions, Napoleon proceeded unerringly to an unassuming door and entered the service staircase.

It was a startling contrast to the marble grandeur of the hall with its walls of bare plaster and wooden floorboards that creaked alarmingly beneath Napoleon's feet. He had to remind himself that he was a guard, not a thief, and guards could creak as much as they wanted. So he stomped to his heart's content, and pushed the door open unhesitatingly when he reached the ground floor, nearly colliding with a servant girl carrying a massive platter of hors d'oeuvres.

Napoleon gallantly steadied the platter, earning himself a demure thank-you and a free _gambas al ajillo_. He winked at her in return, and she continued on her way, smiling. He continued on his, following Gaby's directions to the entrance to the basement. He tested the lock. Disgustingly trivial. And the door was unguarded, obviously an attempt at security through obscurity.

Which might have worked, if Salazar hadn't proceeded to show unvetted guests exactly where it was. Rookie mistake. Honestly, they were doing the guy a favor, showing him that he was woefully under-equipped to enter the big leagues.

"So...twenty-four guards, was it?"

"It was four," Gaby said reluctantly. "The painting's at the end of a long straight corridor. The lighting is good, they'll see you as soon as you reach the bottom step. Two guards on either side of the painting. All carrying Lugers. How are you going to take them out?"

"Listen and learn, my dear." Napoleon made short work of the lock, and within seconds four suspicious glares were boring down a corridor at him.

"What d'you want?" one of the guards called.

"Señor Salazar wants to bring down another set of guests. He told me to make sure everything was ready," Napoleon replied in fluent Spanish, walking towards them, keeping his stride military casual.

"He wants to bring _more_ people down here?" the lead guard groused. "Fine, let him know we're ready. You lot, make yourselves presentable." They straightened, stepped away from the painting, tried to make themselves look a little less menacing by removing their hands from their holsters and folding their hands behind their backs.

"Lookin' good, fellas," Napoleon told them, and raised his tranquilizer gun.

Four shots later, it was just him and the Rembrandt.

After a long pause, the earpiece crackled to life. "Solo? Everything okay?"

"Hush-sh-sh, I'm communing with the painting."

He could almost hear Gaby's eye-roll through the earpiece, but he'd meant it quite seriously. This close, he could make out every stroke inked by the master's hand, every detail testimony to the artist's talent. He could sense the creator's spirit, could imagine Rembrandt standing precisely where he was standing, casting a proud yet critical eye over his work.

Napoleon had always felt a certain affinity for Rembrandt, who'd been a bit of a scoundrel in his day. People didn't remember that now. All they saw was his genius.

Napoleon had once hoped for a similar fate for himself, minus the impecunious ending in an unmarked grave: for his misdeeds to be forgotten in the blazing light of some deed of glory (details to be determined) that he would perform at some point (unspecified) in the future. After all, what was the point in having a name like _Napoleon Solo_ if you never got to see it in lights?

After the CIA goose-stepped its way into his life, though, he'd pretty much given up the idea. His new career as an international spy pretty much guaranteed the whole unmarked grave thing. And as for going down in history? He'd already lost count of the number of times he and Illya and Gaby had saved the world, yet as foot-soldiers of the Cold War, they were unlikely to merit even a footnote.

His only hope for immortality now lay in his former career as an art thief, in having stitched himself into the provenance of some of the greatest artworks in history. It wasn't quite what he'd been aiming for when he'd started out in life, but it would have to do.

"So...any chance of the message being behind the painting?" Evidently ten seconds of communion was about as long as Gaby's patience could take.

Napoleon gave a long-suffering sigh. "All right, fine, I'll look." There was supposedly a touching inscription on the back, which he was curious to see in any case. He pried it off the wall.

Klaxons blared.

"Somebody did not deactivate alarm," a sardonic voice observed, a split-second before being engulfed in a hubbub of shrieks at the sudden noise — the siren must have gone off in the main ballroom as well.

Napoleon cast an aggravated glance at the wall, trying to figure out where he'd gone wrong, but it stared back at him blankly. He gave up trying to work it out. The stairs were the only way out of here, and if he didn't get out before the guards came, he'd be a sitting duck. He tucked the painting under an arm. No art theft, he'd promised, but this was self-defense. Surely they wouldn't dare shoot at him while he was carrying a priceless work of art.

He made a run for it, picking his way through the four prone bodies, clearing the doorway just as the first of their colleagues made his appearance. The guard lunged. Napoleon sidestepped neatly, toppling him face flat onto the floor. Undeterred, the man propped himself up on his elbows, unholstered his pistol and took a pot-shot. The bullet whizzed past the painting and embedded itself in a wall.

Napoleon was scandalized. "They shot at me!"

"What do you expect, you're a thief!" Gaby hissed back.

"But I'm carrying a _Rembrandt!_ " Surely if Salazar knew what he'd taken, he'd order his men to stand down.

"It's not a magic shield, Solo! Get out! I heard Salazar telling his men to secure all the entrances and capture you at all costs!"

She didn't have to tell him twice. Napoleon sped back towards the kitchen, pushing through the mêlée of wait-staff and chefs, a posse of guards close on his heels. The girl who'd served him the prawn looked on wide-eyed as he ran past. It was unfortunate that she'd be able to identify him afterward, but Napoleon couldn't bring himself to make her pay for his own mistake. He shot her another roguish wink, hoping it might tip her in the direction of silence.

Behind him, the guards brandished their pistols menacingly, but uselessly. The magic of kitchens: packed with people too busy to take notice, paid too little to care, and too innocent to shoot. And there, before Napoleon, was their second piece of magic: no matter what temperature it was outside, a busy kitchen's door was always, always propped open to let out the heat.

Napoleon burst through to the outdoors and slammed the door shut behind him. He had just enough time to drag a heavy trash can across it, which gave him a couple seconds of breathing space to plot his escape route.

Plan A had been to lose himself in the crowd of guests and slip into a change of clothes that had been smuggled into the men's room, courtesy of Peril. Plan A had gone up in smoke the moment the alarm rang and he'd run off with a solid wood painting under his arm.

Plan B it was, then. Napoleon headed for the section of wall he'd entered over, a blind spot to the patrols, where he'd left a rope in anticipation of precisely this scenario. It was unlikely to have been discovered, otherwise the alert would have been raised much earlier.

Shouts, and more shots. Napoleon cursed when he saw a fresh set of guards running to intercept him, their trajectory cutting him off from his goal. They were melding into a single force with the guards emerging from the kitchen. Napoleon twisted on his heel and ran in the opposite direction. He'd have to go for Plan C.

There was no Plan C.

Under ideal circumstances, Napoleon would have had a week minimum to scout the territory and devise a series of increasingly elaborate fall-back stratagems. Even a week was optimistic — he'd once spent a whole year planning his most audacious art heist, rescuing a collection of Caravaggios from the vaults of a bank in Geneva. But Waverly hadn't even given him a week. Instead they'd been parachuted into the country at one a.m. — not literally, but almost — which didn't leave a hell of a lot of time for him to case the joint. And now he was reduced to the indignity of having to run for his life. These abrupt deadlines imposed by his handlers were taking a terrible toll on his craft.

Not to mention that Waverly's briefing really should have mentioned the Rembrandt.

Dead air crackled to life. "Cowboy, where are you? Report!"

"South wall, heading for the gate."

"Gate will be guarded. Can't you climb wall?"

"Didn't you see it when you came in? This thing gives the Berlin Wall a run for its money!" It was better in some ways, even: instead of rough concrete, it was constructed of sleek metal, utterly free from footholds, and taller than two men combined. Even if Peril were here, Napoleon would have trouble getting over it.

But if Peril were here, at least he'd have a chance.

Napoleon continued to run towards the only exit he knew he could climb, though he knew that Peril was right, he'd only face a firing squad there as well. Still, there was no choice but to go forward, so he did, putting his concentration into dodging bullets and adding distance between him and his pursuers, giving himself room to improvise. Though part of Napoleon knew he was just postponing the inevitable, that they were too close to throw off, that there was no cover, no convenient trees nearby, that his lungs were already burning and he'd have to slow down eventually —

But at least he could do something about the painting before being captured. Taking advantage of a cloud passing before the moon, Napoleon tossed it over the wall, thankful that Salazar's paranoia hadn't extended to installing a moat around his estate. Maybe minus the painting, he'd be able to make a case for being a guard sent on ahead to brief the gate detail of the situation, he told himself. And if that didn't work, Peril should be able to recover it later, before the guards found it...

And then, like a genie responding to an incantation, the man himself appeared, a six-foot-five Russian freak of nature barreling along an intercept course heading straight for Napoleon. His long, loping stride covered twice the distance a normal man could in half the time, the same astonishing speed he'd once displayed chasing down a car in the streets of East Berlin.

He was as striking a sight now as he had been then, Napoleon marveled — until he noticed the clenched fist aimed directly at his head.

" _Peril!_ " Napoleon ducked, just in time. Illya's fist crashed into the wall behind him.

Napoleon looked at it. Looked back at Illya. And at the wall again.

"Did you just punch a hole in a steel wall with your _bare hands?_ " he said in disbelief.

"Yes. Now, up," Illya grunted. He cupped his hands, and Napoleon stepped into them, found the toehold. He straightened himself, reached for the top. No dice.

One of Illya's hands clamped onto his ass. Napoleon yelped.

"This is no time for false modesty, Cowboy," Illya growled, and pushed. Napoleon found himself propelled heavenwards, and then somehow he was perched atop the wall, looking down at his partner's blond thatch. And at the guards, who were advancing fast, guns at the ready.

"Give me your hand!"

Illya shook his head, still clinging precariously to the wall, one foot wedged in the dent he'd made. "Gaby is still in there. I am not leaving her behind!"

"They'll know you helped me escape!" Napoleon argued.

Illya looked at the guards, rapidly advancing within gunshot range, then back up at Napoleon. Napoleon could practically see the cogs turning in his head. "Not if you kick me."

"What?"

"I'll say I tried to stop you from escaping, you kicked me, I fell. Do it!"

"But...your face!" Napoleon said, horrified.

"Cowboy!" Peril growled.

"Fine!" Napoleon braced himself, and kicked. The reinforced toe of his boot connected with Peril's chin. He fell backwards, his body arcing through the air and landing on the ground with a loud thud. As an afterthought, Napoleon reached inside his gear and threw the stack of bills and blackmail papers down onto Peril's prone body, then jumped.

And once again, they were divided by a wall, Napoleon free to go, Peril still trapped in a minefield.

"Gaby," he said urgently into his microphone as he retraced his steps along the outer side of the wall. "I need you to get out here, talk Peril out of this mess." In his ear, he heard the guards talking in excited Spanish as they surrounded Illya, took him captive. He was responding groggily to their questions. The guards grew impatient. Napoleon heard a thump, and then a belated "oof". A little theatrical, perhaps — they still needed to work on Peril's "taking it like a pussy" act. But it wouldn't do him much good if they found the transmitting devices, as well-hidden as they were, and the various knives and other weapons Napoleon knew had to be concealed somewhere on Peril's person.

"Peril, repeat after me." Napoleon switched to Spanish and gathered every ounce of righteous indignation he could muster, which was easy when he imagined Illya at the mercy of the guards. "Take your hands off me. I am a guest of Señor Salazar and I insist on speaking to him personally. Look, I _did_ my best to stop him. I tried to punch him, he dodged. I tried to pull him down from the wall, he kicked me. If I had known I would be met with such ingratitude, I wouldn't have bothered trying to help you recover the stolen goods. See for yourself, money and papers. Painting? What painting?"

Napoleon bent to pick up the Rembrandt — face-up, thankfully — and ran for the getaway car.

"Piotr? Piotr, what have they done to you? What's going on? This is an outrage!" Napoleon sighed in relief as Gaby arrived on the scene and took charge. "Francisco, stop this at once. My fiancé ran out to help your men catch the thief, and look what your idiot guards did instead! Darling, did you snatch these back off the bad man? What — what _are_ these pictures, anyway?" Then came Salazar's placating tones as he hastily collected the papers before Gaby could examine them further. Napoleon felt a brief pang for the women Salazar was blackmailing, but that was soon submerged under relief as Salazar began berating his men for hurting one of his valued guests, then tendered his most profuse apologies to Gaby and Illya, promising to make it up to them —

Then silence. He'd driven out of range of the transmitter. Napoleon slammed down on the accelerator, speeding past white stuccoed houses, glancing occasionally at the cobblestoned street in the mirror. No one had followed him. He let out a long breath, forced himself to relax. Gaby and Illya would be fine. The mission had gone great, really. Well, apart from whatever injuries Illya had sustained. And the distinct lack of a coded message, of course, which might prove a sticky point. Napoleon wondered whether Waverly could be placated by a Rembrandt. It would go very nicely on that bare spot on his office wall at headquarters.

Napoleon turned right onto the Paseo de la Reforma, the capital's major thoroughfare. It was jam-packed with traffic, but Napoleon didn't mind. He flipped on the overhead light and began to examine the Rembrandt. Mercifully, it had escaped any bullet injuries. He still couldn't believe they'd dared to shoot at it. It was almost as if they cared more about stopping Napoleon from escaping than about recovering the painting —

"And what could be more valuable than a genuine Rembrandt," Napoleon mused. Seeing that traffic ahead was still like molasses, he reached into a pocket and pulled out his tools. There was indeed an inscription on the back, written in Latin, but he ignored it for now. He selected a pair of tweezers and gently probed every knot and gap in the wood. There. Napoleon closed the tweezers ever so gently around a tiny scrap of material, and pulled it out.

It looked innocuous enough, a black dot not even a sixteenth of an inch wide. Napoleon pulled out his jeweler's loupe, took a closer look. A jumble of letters sprang into view.

He didn't even bother to hold it in. Napoleon just sat there amidst the honking cars and laughed and laughed and laughed.

* * *

"So it is confirmed?" Gaby's disembodied voice sounded incredulous, which put a little damper on Napoleon's moment of triumph.

"O ye of little faith," he declared sadly. "Of course I checked. One coded message, exactly fitting Waverly's specifications. Salazar won't be putting all his eggs in one basket again for a while." He flopped onto the hotel room couch with a sigh and poured himself a scotch. It had been a hectic few weeks of mission after mission as the world threatened to teeter off its knife-edge. The shockwave of Kennedy's assassination, just nine days earlier, hadn't helped much either.

Napoleon raised a silent toast. To Rembrandt, whose portrait of Jacob de Gheyn now hung in place of the ersatz art on the wall of his hotel room. To Jacob himself, whose friend had mourned him via the inscription on the reverse, calling upon him to rest now that their paintings were back together. To Kennedy, who had sought peace, and had been slaughtered for it. He stopped the litany of the dead at three. It wouldn't do to go all maudlin, and besides, he was thirsty. He took a swig of scotch.

The earpiece remained silent with him. Either Gaby and Illya had turned off their transmitters for privacy, or they were simply enjoying a quiet, romantic drive through the less trafficked streets of Mexico City.

Napoleon was allergic to quiet.

"Well, Peril? Who's the bad spy now?" He regretted it the moment the words left his mouth. He'd probably just interrupted something. For the umpteenth time. Peril would not be best pleased.

Sure enough, Illya's tone was grumbly when he came back on air, after a solid second had passed. "You are still bad spy. Just...competent thief."

"Spy or thief, I think we can all agree that Solo is one lucky son-of-a-bitch," Gaby said. At least she sounded properly amused. "Did you report it in?"

"Yes, I'm supposed to do the drop in —" Napoleon consulted his watch — "half an hour."

He'd done a good deal more than report in, actually — gotten in contact with a few acquaintances from a past life, stirred up a minor bidding war between a number of fences for the Rembrandt, all of whom he'd worked with before and would see to it that it went to a good home where it would be properly looked after.

It didn't seem worth mentioning. Peril would have a fit.

Especially if he ever found out he was joint beneficiary on a very secret Swiss bank account that would soon have a few hundred thousand dollars of ill-gotten profits stashed in it.

"We will be back before then. I will go with you to drop site," Peril said.

Napoleon thought of himself and Illya strolling side by side through the streets of Mexico City. He thought of Illya's hand on his ass. He forced himself to think instead of Illya's hand on Gaby's hip.

"Oh, there's no need for that, Peril. Stay out, enjoy the night. Or, if you prefer, come back and let Gaby fuss over the wound on your chin. And remember that it was your idea, not mine."

"Do not flatter yourself, Cowboy, is only a bruise."

"What about the injuries inflicted by our friends at Salazar's house? Or your hand?" Napoleon argued.

"Flesh wounds, nothing broken," Illya said dismissively.

"Sounds like you boys have a date, then," Gaby said, the grin self-evident in her voice.

If Napoleon had said something like that, Illya would have started describing how he would murder Napoleon in gruesome, gory detail. He supposed it was only because it was Gaby talking that Illya stayed quiet. Yet another symptom of the Russian's feelings for their feisty chop-shop girl.

His original plan for the evening had been to do the dead-drop, then return to deliver his companions a lecture on art history, now that he had a suitable prop. Perhaps that plan should be revised in favor of a different set of leisure activities.

Yet he knew exactly how this evening would very likely pan out if he left his two partners to their own devices. Gaby would pester Illya to continue their dancing experiment. Peril would refuse, and get out his chess set to play against himself. Gaby would needle him half-heartedly before choosing to drink the evening away, either inside the hotel room or outside it. And nothing would happen. _Again._

It was getting tiresome, really, all this waiting for the other shoe to drop. Honestly, someone should just lock those two in a cupboard and force them to figure themselves out.

_Hmm._

Napoleon settled back against the cushions and drained the rest of his scotch thoughtfully, a smile slowly forming on his face.

Of an evening of truly brilliant ideas, this was the most brilliant of them all. Forget _corker_. This was what Napoleon's mother would call _a real doozy_.

* * *

"Solo, we're back!" Gaby rapped sharply on his door.

There was no answer, because Napoleon was currently located in an empty room two doors down from his own and eavesdropping through his earpiece.

It didn't take long for Gaby to get impatient and turn to breaking in. After fiddling with the lock for a few seconds longer than should have been necessary — Napoleon mentally scheduled another round of lockpicking practice — she and Illya were in, and quickly got concerned at the distinct lack of Napoleon, which was as it should be.

"No signs of struggle. Rembrandt painting is on wall. He probably went downstairs to pick up something. If you are concerned I can use tracker to track him," Peril offered.

"Yes, why not. We can't wait for that _dummkopf_ forever."

 _Dummkopf?_ Napoleon mouthed to himself. Well that was uncalled for.

A period of silence while Peril retrieved the tracker and turned it on.

"Signal is strong. He is close by. This way..." 

At this point they wandered out into the corridor and Napoleon could peek at them through the peephole.

"He's in here." They stopped outside the door, a mere two yards away from Napoleon's hiding place.

"In the broom closet?" Gaby folded her arms skeptically as she eyed the door opposite. "But why would Solo be in a broom closet?"

Peril tried the doorknob. "It's unlocked." He flung the door open, which automatically turned on the light. "Cowboy?" Then stopped short when he found it to contain only shelves of cleaning materials and bed linen.

"No Solo?" Gaby followed him in. Napoleon silently exited the room he was in and tiptoed across the corridor, concealing himself behind the open door.

"Signal is coming from up there. Highest shelf."

"Can you reach?"

"No, but perhaps if I lift you —" A rustle of cloth indicated that Peril was in the process of doing just that, which sounded like a _very_ promising start. Napoleon slammed the door shut and deftly turned the key in the lock.

"Illya! What —?" A couple of confused thumps, then the doorknob rattled violently. "Solo! I know this is your handiwork! Open the door!"

"Now, now, Miss Teller, believe me when I say this is all for your own benefit," Napoleon soothed.

"It bloody well is not! Open the bloody door!" Really, she was spending a little too much time in Waverly's company — not that the man had ever used the word _bloody_ in Napoleon's hearing, and if Napoleon hadn't heard him swear in six months of reporting to him, which included some truly spectacular mission snafus, it seemed unlikely that he'd address them to Gaby in private.

Napoleon glanced down the corridor to see an elderly couple making their way towards him. He leaned casually against the oak grain of the door in an attempt to muffle the increasingly loud thumps Gaby was making.

"Quiet now, someone's coming this way and it really wouldn't do to draw any more attention to ourselves tonight, would it?"

"I ought to feed you to the wolves, Solo!" Gaby hissed, but she shut up. Though he could still feel her fuming through the solid door. Interestingly, Peril hadn't made so much as a squeak of complaint. He must have assessed the situation and seen the advantages it yielded him, like any good spy.

Napoleon studied his watch, then put on a long-suffering air as he stared at the door to the empty room opposite. "Evening," he said congenially to the passing couple.

"Waiting for your young lady, are you?" the lady asked in English, a pleasant smile on her wrinkled face.

"That's exactly right, ma'am," Napoleon drawled back.

"If she's anything like my Mabel be prepared to wait a long while, sonny," the man chortled, and was promptly poked in the foot with a cane.

Napoleon bade them a pleasant evening and waited a few more seconds until they were safely in the elevator. He dusted off his hands and declared, "Well! I'm going to go drop this message off, then find myself some entertainment for the evening. You two kids have fun without me."

"Solo, this isn't funny! Illya —" came one last exasperated snarl, but Napoleon was already turning down the flight of stairs that led to the lobby. He snuck behind the counter and replaced the pilfered key — he doubted the happy couple would find the broom closet conducive to an extended bout of lovemaking, and even if he had to let them out later it would take two seconds of work with a pick. He gave the still-oblivious clerk an interested glance, but he wasn't quite what Napoleon was craving this evening.

Napoleon made his way to the hotel door, paused a moment to adjust his collar against the cool night air, then stepped out onto the teeming streets of the metropolis and began threading a route towards the drop site.

Unimaginatively, the dead letter box was an actual, working mailbox on a random street not far from the hotel. He'd been instructed to place the microdot under the stamp and address it to a particular charity in Miami Beach. Napoleon pushed the envelope, thus addressed, through the aperture and let it drop. He listened for the soft thunk as it fell onto its bed of all the other mail. Then walked away.

There was something decidedly anti-climactic about a dead drop. After the adrenaline-fueled effort of stealing something, you just left your prize, unattended, for an unidentified agent to pick up some unspecified time later. No theatrics, no fanfares, no lines to deliver, and in this case, not even the frisson of stepping beyond the bounds of humdrum routine by attaching a microdot to the base of a park bench. It was all deeply unsatisfying.

Maybe he should have brought Illya after all. Peril probably loved dead-drops. Likely why he'd offered to come.

Marvin Johnson would have agreed with Napoleon. _He'd_ always operated with pizzazz. Now there was the kind of agent who'd arrange a drop at the most phallic of civic monuments — if penises had golden angels dancing on their tips — smack bang in the center of the city.

Napoleon briefly contemplated giving him a ring. But perhaps that wasn't the wisest idea, after stealing a painting from right under the man's nose. Sure, U.N.C.L.E. and the CIA were supposed to be on the same side, but that wouldn't matter to Johnson, who had a possessive streak a mile long, which covered any and all espionage activity that happened on his turf, and then some. Besides, his sexual technique frequently ventured into the realm of sado-masochism, which was all well and good when Napoleon was in the mood, but not tonight. Not after the last few weeks.

He thought about going back to Salazar's and retrieving the suit still languishing in the men's room, if it wasn't already discovered, and perhaps stealing the blackmail papers all over again while he was at it. He immediately decided against it. Salazar's men would be on red alert now. Besides, he didn't have the energy for another break-in. Not solo.

Pity. The suit had been a Balenciaga.

He could return to the hotel, of course, but his room was closer to the broom closet, and had the larger bed. Perhaps he should give the two lovebirds some space. They would thank him in the morning.

So he found himself instead at a quaint bar Johnson had once introduced him to, one that served a superlative selection of cocktails and offered the prospect of very fine company. He picked a seat at the bar, ordered himself a tequila, and waited for the inevitable approach.

It didn't even take three minutes.

"Hello, handsome," a voice behind him said.

Napoleon turned. Blinked. Looked the man up and down. Smiled charmingly. "Well, hello to you too."

The man slid onto the stool beside him and gave him a white-toothed grin. "My name's Marco."

"In that case, call me Polo." Napoleon grinned back.

Marco laughed. "This is not American name," he said, glancing up at Napoleon through near-invisible eyelashes.

He wasn't quite tall enough, or blond enough, or grumpy enough, but Marco _simply adored Americans_ , or so he claimed, and by the end of the evening, Napoleon made sure that he meant it, body and soul.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DF: _Distrito Federal_ , the administrative entity encompassing Mexico City.
> 
> The _Portrait of Jacob de Gheyn III_ , also known as the "takeaway Rembrandt", is because of its portability one of the most stolen paintings in the world. In 1962 it was found lying on the floor of its gallery after a presumed attempted theft. In this story I have taken that theft to have been successful.


	2. Chapter 2

For one brief, glorious moment — when he opened the door to his room to find Illya stretched out on the couch, head in Gaby's lap, her fingers carding through his fine blond hair, glasses of what looked suspiciously like Napoleon's best scotch within arm's reach — Napoleon thought he'd actually succeeded.

But when they glanced up at his entrance, their faces did not glow with gratitude. They didn't even bear a well-fucked look of satiation, which Napoleon would have gleefully accepted in lieu of thanks.

If anything, they reminded him of a pair of stern parents, waiting for their wayward teenager to return from a night of illicit debauchery. The sensation was not entirely unfamiliar.

"Evening," Napoleon said cheerily, despite the glares they were shooting his way. "Enjoy your little tête-à-tête?"

Illya bolted up from under Gaby's hands, his knee knocking over his empty glass onto the low coffee table. " _You_ deal with him," he snarled at Gaby.

"Me? Why do _I_ have to be the grown-up?"

"Because I am going to _kill_ someone if I have to be in same room with Solo one moment longer," Illya growled, and pushed his way to the door.

Napoleon stepped back to let him through, partly out of plain old-fashioned courtesy, partly because this proximity to Peril after spending the evening with a pale imitation set his every nerve tingling. It was like crossing the gulf between the generic hotel art and his Rembrandt.

"Sleep well, Peril," he said, with what he hoped was a hearty dollop of insouciance.

Illya stopped and stared at him, eyes flashing bluer than the hottest part of a flame, and for a split-second Napoleon thought that he was going to follow through on his threat.

Instead, Illya gave the air an angry sniff. "That is not your cologne."

Heat rose in Napoleon's cheeks. He lifted his head defiantly and held Illya's accusatory gaze. "No," he said. "It's not."

He tried to tell himself he didn't care about the look of profound disgust Illya gave him before he exited the room for good, rattling the ceiling fixtures with the force of the door's slam. Two seconds later, it was echoed by another slam down the corridor. Napoleon held his breath, waiting for the sounds of general destruction to start.

Silence.

Napoleon let out his breath in a long exhale. The last time Peril had torn a room apart, a twin suite he'd shared with Napoleon in Bombay, Waverly had given them the politest, scathingest telling-off of Napoleon's life, before barring them from ever sharing a room again unless the mission absolutely, definitively called for it. That had been an experience Napoleon didn't care to repeat.

Not that he was out of the woods yet. Gaby was patting the vacant seat beside her, giving him an expectant look. Great. She wanted to talk. Napoleon would rather take his chances against the Russian bear with the literal sore paw.

He sat down beside her and picked up the cut-glass decanter, raised an eyebrow when he saw how little was left. "Not that you're not always welcome to raid the contents of my liquor cabinet, Miss Teller, but this _was_ a Laphroaig thirty-year single malt."

Gaby shrugged and took a smug sip from her nearly-full glass. "It was either that, or..." She made a vague gesture reminiscent of fireworks.

"I guess that's an adequate exchange," Napoleon acknowledged. "So, what's eating Peril?"

"You'd be mad too if your plans for the evening were derailed by a juvenile prank," Gaby said archly.

"It's not like I locked you into Fort Knox," Napoleon protested. Heck, it wasn't as if Fort Knox was even that hard to escape from. "You and Peril could have busted out of that broom closet at any time."

Gaby looked at him for a long moment, as if sizing him up. "He doesn't like dark, enclosed spaces," she said finally.

Napoleon snorted. "Are you telling me that Mr. Big Bad Russian Spy is afraid of the dark?" He'd been with Illya in enough dark places to know that that wasn't true.

"I didn't say he was afraid. He just really doesn't like small dark spaces."

Claustrophobia? That was a revelation. Napoleon had seen Illya stare down gun barrels and sadistic megalomaniacs without blinking. It was hard to imagine the KGB agent being frightened by anything. Napoleon supposed it was a sign of trust that she'd shared that information with him at all, after the stunt he'd pulled. It could be valuable intel in the hands of an enemy. "I guess...I miscalculated."

"That you did," Gaby said. She toyed with her glass for a moment, before setting it down and locking onto Napoleon's gaze. "Stop trying to push us together, Solo. It's not going to happen."

Napoleon stared at her uncomprehendingly. "It's not?"

"If it was going to happen, it would have happened long before now, and without your help. Unlike _somebody_ , I actually go after what I want," Gaby said pointedly.

Napoleon felt the barb keenly. " _I_ go after what I want."

Gaby let out a huff of amusement. "No, Solo, you don't. Sure, you bed any man or woman you please. You pickpocket trinkets and steal priceless paintings off walls. But you never do anything that might risk _this_." She placed a tiny hand on his chest. "Why don't you tell Illya how you feel about him?" she said softly.

Something bubbled up in Napoleon's chest under her palm, hot and fearful and ashamed of having been discovered. "What exactly do you want me to say? That he's not such a terrible agent after all?" he offered, his expression casual. Napoleon was a spy. The CIA's best. He lied for a living. He could lie through this.

Gaby shook her head, implacable. "That's not how you feel, Solo."

"Okay, so he's a damn good spy despite the fact that he attracts attention wherever he goes," Napoleon conceded.

"Ha!" Gaby jabbed a triumphant finger at him. "You just admitted that he's attractive."

"Excuse me, but 'attracts attention' and 'attractive' are not synonymous," Napoleon began to argue. But who was he kidding. "All right, fine, he's easy on the eye." That didn't seem like such a concession. Illya was objectively handsome, and Napoleon was well aware of his own reputation: that he'd bed anything that moved about on two legs. "And sure, Illya'd probably be a great fuck if he didn't already have a stick up his ass about the immoral perversion of gay sex."

Gaby didn't bat an eyelash at Napoleon's deliberate crudity. "What makes you think he does?"

"You saw how he reacted when he smelled another man's cologne on me," Napoleon pointed out, keeping his expression open and easy despite the hurt pulsing inside. "And what about the frown of disapproval every time I'm asked to seduce a mark of the same sex?"

"He doesn't like it much when you're asked to seduce a mark of the opposite sex either," Gaby pointed out. "Have you ever considered that he might simply object to honeypot missions? Or to an incessant string of one-night stands?"

This was all getting a little too personal for Napoleon's taste. He needed a drink. He poured the last of the decanter into Illya's glass, turned it 180 degrees, and sipped from the untouched side.

"Illya's right, isn't he." He looked up to see Gaby observing him keenly. "You're always playing to an audience."

"Hazard of our profession, Miss Teller. We never know when we do have an audience," Napoleon lectured.

"Illya swept the room for bugs."

"And found only his own, I presume. Wait — he's not listening, is he?" Napoleon blanched.

"No one's listening, idiot, and you don't need to keep up appearances in front of me. I've seen how you look at him. You can try to hide it, but I happen to be a decent spy, and I can spot a pattern. You don't look at him the way you look at your sexual conquests."

"How do I look at him?" Napoleon asked uncomfortably.

"Like a pining puppy."

Napoleon groaned, and hid his face in his hands.

"There, there. I know you don't like to think it, but Illya _is_ very easy to love."

"Then why don't you?" Napoleon challenged, turning the tables on her.

Gaby hugged her knees, rested her chin thoughtfully atop them. "I do love him. But not in that way. I think of him more as an incredibly protective older brother."

"Older brother, huh. What does that make me?"

"A lecherous uncle?" Gaby joked. When she saw his expression, she immediately took it back. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean that. I wasn't thinking of Uncle Rudi."

"It's okay." Napoleon stared into the depths of his glass. "So...what changed? Back in Rome, I thought you two were a sure thing."

Gaby hesitated for the briefest of moments, then it all came out in a rush. "I spent six years behind the Wall. Now I want to see the world, to taste it, dance in it, to really live in it. I don't want to spend the rest of my life in bland hotel rooms that meld one into the next, city after city. I don't want to stay in and play chess against myself, or work through a problem in algebraic geometry, or read the longest novel I can get my hands on." She stopped. "Is that awful of me?"

"I think it sounds perfectly justified," Napoleon said honestly.

"It's not that I think Illya's boring, it's just...he's seen enough of the world that he's content in his own head. I haven't, and I'm not. I don't blame him. I understand that he's seen more than his fair share of darkness. He doesn't want to see more of it."

"Then what does he want?" Napoleon asked, his heart thudding against his ribcage.

"I think he wants —" Gaby paused, calibrating her words — "a refuge."

Napoleon shook his head, disappointment clawing at his chest. "Then you've got the wrong man. Nobody would exactly describe me as restful."

"Maybe you should give yourself more credit," Gaby said. " _I_ think you're just afraid of commitment."

"Not afraid. I just don't see the point." At Gaby's skeptical expression, he explained further. "I know you think of U.N.C.L.E. as a permanent thing. And yeah, six months is a long time, a lot longer than I thought this gig would last. But one of these days, Sanders is going to crook his finger, and I'll be gone. Like that." He snapped his fingers.

Gaby's face softened in sympathy. "No, you won't. Waverly will fight for you. _We'll_ fight for you."

"The three of you, versus the CIA juggernaut?" Napoleon didn't bother hiding the skepticism in his voice.

"The four of us," she corrected. "Like David and Goliath. We're smaller, more nimble. We'll out-manoeuvre them."

"That's how I used to think. The result was ten years of indentured servitude," Napoleon said bitterly.

"Solo." Napoleon looked up to meet her honest brown eyes. "If you could have anything, anything in the world. What would you ask for?"

It was so tempting to tell the truth. To just say "give me Illya, and damn the consequences". To imagine a world in which there was no prejudice and no politics, where Illya might actually welcome his advances, where a professional thief from the CIA and an agent of the KGB could live and love without interference from pesky handlers.

That world didn't exist.

"All I want is for this to continue. The three of us, U.N.C.L.E. agents, traveling around, saving the world."

Gaby tutted at his answer. "You ought to know by now, Solo, that nothing lasts forever."

 _I know._ God, did he know.

Gaby glanced at her watch, which read well past three in the morning. "Time for bed," she said reluctantly. "We have an early briefing tomorrow. 0730, our room."

"Oh-seven-thirty, yes, ma'am."

Gaby got to her stockinged feet. "And after that, you're going to tell Illya about your feelings for him."

Their chop-shop girl was relentless. Napoleon felt his defenses crumbling under her onslaught.

"Right, because we all know how well it went the last time someone named Napoleon tried to invade Russia."

Gaby took his face in her hands and spoke gently. "Illya is not Russia, no more than you are America. You are not bound to mutually assured destruction."

"Sometimes it sure feels that way," Napoleon muttered.

"Only when you're acting like an idiot," she said, giving his forehand a friendly flick. Napoleon caught her hand, and held it in supplication.

"If he kills me, will you see to my final arrangements? Waverly has my preferences on file."

She pried her hand out of his and swatted him on the arm. "You are such a pessimist." But her gaze was fond as she planted a kiss on his forehead. "Good night."

He kissed her back, one chaste peck on each cheek.

"Why, Mr Solo," Gaby said, her tone playful.

He smiled back at her. "Don't tell Peril, but that one's from me."

* * *

Napoleon stumbled into the room next door at seven thirty-two, stubble on his cheeks and wearing yesterday's clothes, bleary-eyed. The only grooming he'd managed was brushing his teeth and gelling his hair, before he'd decided that the likelihood of Illya dismembering him for being late outweighed his horror of appearing unkempt before a fellow human being.

At least Gaby had the decency to look properly hung-over, hiding her puffy eyes behind dark glasses. Peril, on the other hand, was freshly washed and shaved, his hair combed flat against his head, his cheeks a delectable shade of pink, because of course he'd already been out for a run despite the unholy hour of the morning. Peril was setting up the secure channel, only acknowledging Napoleon with the most dismissive of disapproving glares. The glare was probably for Napoleon's tardiness, but who knew? He had a myriad of sins to atone for.

Napoleon perched himself on a corner of the desk and watched Illya's deft fingers work their electronic magic. The knuckles of his right hand were bruised, their color matching the contusion on the cleft of his chin. Napoleon recalled the startled clang the metal had made as it deformed under Illya's impressive strength. He wondered what sound his face would make when Illya punched him later, after his confession.

He might as well get the first part of it out now. "Hey, Peril. I'm sorry about last night's prank."

Illya glanced up at him. "Just don't do it again," he said, without a hint of warmth, and returned to his knobs and dials.

 _Well,_ Napoleon huffed. Here he was, offering what was probably only the second sincere apology he'd made since reaching adulthood — admittedly a nebulous concept particularly when applied to himself — and Illya had dismissed it, just like that. He looked to Gaby for moral support, but she was busy inhaling a glass of water, her expression obscured by the sunglasses.

Illya punched a final button. "Line is secure," he announced.

"Ah, good morning, gents. Miss Teller. I trust you slept well," Waverly's aristocratic tones came on the air.

That wasn't quite true, so they all made non-committal hums in response.

"Splendid. Now, Mr Solo has given me the broad gist of what transpired last night. We also received, at about 1 a.m. local time, when I think our friend Salazar gave up all hope of recovering the message on his own, an urgent squawk to his clients."

"They're probably not too happy with him for losing the very thing he tried to blackmail them with," Gaby contributed.

"Unfortunately their communications set-up is a lot more sophisticated than Salazar's. We still haven't been able to intercept transmissions emanating from them. But yes, I think that is a safe assumption."

"So how are our efforts coming along at identifying them?" Napoleon asked.

"I was just coming to that. We've hit a small snag."

Napoleon exchanged mutual glances of oh-god-what's-next with his two partners. A "small snag" to Waverly could mean anything from a nuclear warhead going missing to HQ running out of teabags.

"The thing is —" Waverly sounded genuinely embarrassed — "when our local agent, masquerading as the postman, went to pick up the message from the drop site, it wasn't there."

Napoleon's heart began to pound as Illya and Gaby's heads swiveled around interrogatively. He knew how bad this looked — and how much worse it looked when you considered that he'd locked his partners into a broom closet so they couldn't accompany him on the drop. Peril's fingers began tapping out a rhythm against his thigh.

"Guys, listen, I know I put the message there," Napoleon began.

"And I have no doubt that you did, Mr Solo."

Napoleon breathed a private sigh of relief. _Thank you, Waverly._ But Peril still looked close to exploding.

"Of course you executed drop. You would not have told us you found message if you intended to steal it. But because you —" For a single terrifying moment, Napoleon believed Peril was going to tell on him, but he continued — " _insist on going alone_ , maybe you get tailed and not notice."

That raised Napoleon's hackles. "I did check my six, Kuryakin, I'm not a complete novice at this game."

"Gentlemen, please. Squabbling is not going to help us."

"So what are our orders?" Gaby asked, the most professional of any of them.

"Simply to stay put until I can confirm that our local operation is not compromised and I can arrange a secure extraction." Which was all very standard, by-the-book stuff, but the order grated on Napoleon. If the message was lost, he had effectively failed the mission, and he couldn't take that lying down.

"I don't suppose you can recall anything about the message, Mr Solo?" Waverly added, his voice a little too off-hand for Napoleon's liking.

"Remember? It was in code."

"Yes, but you could have copied ciphertext," Peril said.

Napoleon took a deep breath, hurt by the accusation barely concealed in the Soviet agent's words. "I didn't copy it, as it turns out. Did you want me to?" he retorted.

"Under ordinary circumstances, no, we would not have appreciated that," Waverly replied. "But then these are hardly ordinary circumstances."

"I can give you perhaps the first ten letters." Napoleon thought hard. "AWALJEBEKN...A...C...?"

"Don't strain yourself," Peril said sourly.

Napoleon glared at him.

"Thank you for the effort, Mr Solo. I will be in touch. Until then, have a little 'downtime', as you Americans like to say. It's been a busy few weeks. Enjoy your rest." Waverly clicked off, and they all stared at the dormant radio in frustration.

Finally Peril got to his feet. "I hope you are proud of your _prank_ now, Solo," he bit out, before disappearing into the bathroom.

Napoleon had never felt so low in his life.

But already the black cloud of despondency was giving way to the hot flame of resentment at being unjustly accused. He'd already apologized, dammit. And he'd only been trying to _help_ the two most important people in his life. Even he couldn't have foreseen the consequences.

He looked at Gaby. "You were saying something about confessing my feelings to Peril?"

She gave his arm a comforting squeeze. "Well...maybe give it a few days."

"Good, because right now my feelings are that he should go fuck himself."

"He's just frustrated that you risked your lives for nothing," Gaby pointed out.

Napoleon clenched his jaw. "Then I'm going to change that."

"Sounds like you have something in mind."

Possibilities were stitching themselves together in Napoleon's brain. "Not yet, but with your help, soon."

Gaby took off her dark glasses, revealing a pair of bloodshot but determined eyes. "What do you want me to do?"

* * *

Peril broke into Napoleon's hotel room two hours later, which was about an hour and a half longer than Napoleon had bet Gaby that his patience would last. "What are you two up to in here," he said flatly.

Napoleon took a strategic step to the right, concealing the glass of water-logged Russian-made bugs that stood on the side table and gestured broadly at the city map spread out on the desk they'd pulled away from the wall and turned into a situation room.

"Nothing much. Just regaling Gaby with tales of the sights of Mexico City she's missing," he said, projecting innocence and light.

Peril frowned as he looked down at the markings on the map. "You have tale about very forgettable neighborhood park in DF suburb?"

"Well, not exactly, but —"

Gaby threw up her hands. "Oh, for heaven's sake. Sit down, Illya." Napoleon clutched at his betrayed heart, and she made a face at him in return. "Don't be ridiculous, Solo. If we're going to pull this off, we'll need Illya's help."

"You were planning operation without me?" Peril looked almost hurt. As if the asshole had any feelings to hurt.

"Well, it didn't look like you'd be very interested in taking part, Peril," Napoleon said, only slightly prissily. "After all, it will involve concealing information from Waverly. And not following his orders. I'm not so sure Super Agent here can take the strain."

Illya looked scandalized. "I am certainly not in habit of disobeying my handler."

"Apart from one notable exception, of course," Napoleon pointed out. "Or have you forgotten?"

Illya glowered at him. "How can I forget? I have cause to regret it every day."

The words burned. Up until now, the destruction of the tape had been a pleasant memory for Napoleon to savor, of the first time the two of them had been perfectly in sync. Apparently Peril didn't feel the same.

Gaby intervened. " _Boys_. Either we're all in this together, or not at all."

"Perhaps you should explain this...plan of yours," Peril said stiffly.

Napoleon was highly tempted to keep his lips zipped, but Gaby waved an imperious gesture to proceed, so with a put-upon sigh he began. "Here's the situation as I see it. If you disagree...well, I'm sure you'll let me know."

Peril raised an eyebrow, but nodded his acquiescence.

"Okay. Here are the personages in this plot. The unknown thief. The unknown client. Salazar. U.N.C.L.E. Too bad you didn't bring your chess set with you, Peril, we could have used some props," Napoleon said, as he ticked them off his fingers. "The message is not with us, per Waverly." He folded down his pinkie. "It's not with Salazar, because if he had any hope of retrieving the message, he wouldn't have informed his client." Down went his ring finger.

Peril folded his arms. "And what if client and thief are one and the same?"

"Then this plan doesn't work, but don't worry, it will. I'll get to that in a bit. Now, my goal is not to recover the message. The unknown thief, whoever that is, will be holding it close to his chest." Napoleon removed his index finger from the list of personages, leaving just one party brandished in Illya's face.

Illya eyed Napoleon's extended middle finger, eyebrow twitching. "If message is not the objective, then what is?" he asked, as Gaby batted away Napoleon's offending digit. _Spoilsport._

"To identify the unknown client." Gaby took over. "Once we know who the client is, we'll know more about what the message might be. And remember, they probably know what it says. They may let it slip if they don't think anyone's listening."

"So far I buy it," Illya said reluctantly. "So what is plan?"

"The client knows by now that the message went missing on the same night that a Rembrandt was stolen from Salazar. They'll have put two and two together. So they'll jump at the chance when I offer the painting in a fire sale on the black market, apparently clueless as to its even more valuable contents."

"Clueless art thief is good cover. No acting required," Illya commented.

Napoleon contented himself with a glare at Illya and continued. "So I got in touch with a local fence after this morning's call and had him put out a very discreet call for buyers of the Jacob III."

"Suspicious," Illya said immediately. "Art fences do not put their wares on market so soon after theft. And useless. Salazar is most likely candidate to put in bid."

"We were banking on the unknown client being slightly more on the ball. We already know they have an efficient operation."

"All the more reason they are most likely candidate to have intercepted message."

"That's where you'd be wrong, Peril. If they had the message, they wouldn't bother to respond to the call. But as it turns out, it didn't even take five minutes for a buyer to get back to my fence. They agreed to our selling price, no haggling."

"Which means they intend to kill you instead of pay you." Illya shook his head. "Is too dangerous."

"Why, Peril, it's almost as if you care," Napoleon taunted.

Illya flushed, but he steamrolled through whatever embarrassment he might be feeling, demanding, "When is exchange taking place?"

"High noon."

Illya consulted his father's watch. "That soon? But you do not know terrain. Could be ambush. Where?"

"Oh, didn't you guess? At that very forgettable neighborhood park of yours." Napoleon tapped his finger on the map.

"Speaking of that, why are you so familiar with it, Illya?" Gaby asked.

Illya shrugged. "KGB has used it for exchange before."

"Seriously? That's a bit of a coincidence." Napoleon frowned at the map. The venue had been proposed by the client. After they'd agreed so readily to the price, it had felt uncouth to haggle over the location, but now Napoleon was beginning to come round to Illya's point of view. "The KGB can't be the client, can they?"

Illya shook his head resolutely. "If they were, I would not be allowed on this mission." Or, Napoleon thought privately, he _would_ be on this mission, just in a very different capacity. But even in his anger at Illya, Napoleon couldn't believe that the man would betray them. Even Illya hadn't accused him of treachery, only of incompetence. "And if Salazar tried to threaten KGB, he would quickly find himself thrown off nearest mountain cliff in regrettable hiking accident. KGB does not allow itself to be blackmailed." Illya tapped his finger on the map. "Which entrance?"

"South. Teller was going to station herself here as back-up, keep in visual contact besides the tracker."

"You cannot maintain visual contact from a car."

Gaby raised an eyebrow. "Are you questioning my driving abilities?"

"Neighborhood is like maze," Illya said, his tone placating. "Has to be motorbike."

"Well, _I'd_ still be faster in a car than on a motorbike."

"I will do it. Were you planning on taking painting with you?" Illya addressed Napoleon.

"Yes?" Napoleon ventured. The idea of giving the Rembrandt to these goons didn't exactly make him happy, but it wasn't as if he could get a new one forged at such short notice. "How else were we supposed to make the trade?"

"Bad move. Give up all leverage. You should keep painting here, take them to it after they show you money. Or threaten you for it." Illya's long, callused finger shifted to a spot on the edges of the city sprawl. "Chop-shop has better chance of following you from there, if they decide to take you with them."

Napoleon stared at the map, running Peril's proposal through various scenarios. On the one hand, it required Napoleon to actually get in the car, rather than simply plant the bugs and trackers they'd been planning. On the flip side, it mitigated the biggest risk, that they'd just bundle him in the car and drive off. With Napoleon in the car, too, he'd be able to collect first-hand intelligence, perhaps provoke an admission that wouldn't otherwise be forthcoming.

It was a better strategy than his had been, Napoleon admitted to himself with some chagrin, though what could he expect against an international chess master. And playing with fewer pieces, to boot.

"Peril, you sure you want to have such an active role? You said yourself you don't like disobeying your handlers." Waverly might forgive it — they were all counting on the results of this operation forcing him to forgive it — but the KGB were less likely to look upon this spirit of independence with a favorable eye.

Illya shrugged. "As Chop-shop Girl said. Either we are all in this together, or not at all. If you choose to do suicide mission, Cowboy, I must be there to save your rind."

 _Cowboy._ Napoleon recognized an olive branch when he saw one. "The expression you're looking for, Peril, is 'save your hide'. But okay." Behind Illya, Gaby was making little jerky signals with her head. She might as well wave a placard saying _"Confess!"_. "Thanks," he added, and Gaby rolled her eyes.

"We don't have much time," she said briskly. "I'll go liberate a motorbike for Illya." She left with a pointed look at Napoleon that might as well have been a command.

Napoleon licked his lips, suddenly nervous. Why the hell was he nervous? He was a man of the world. A suave international spy. Not a goddamn sixteen-year-old about to ask his crush out on a date. Except that that was exactly what he felt like. He took a step forward. "Uh, Peril," he started without knowing how he was going to end the sentence, which was just as well when he saw the murderous expression come over Illya's face.

The Russian reached behind Napoleon and picked up the glassful of listening devices. Ah. Napoleon had forgotten about those. Damn, damn, damn.

Peril slammed the glass down on the map, sloshing some of the liquid over the side. "Do you have any idea how long these take to make?" he demanded.

"Sorry," Napoleon said for the second time that day, which was more than he'd ever apologized for anything in his life. He didn't quite mean it — he'd taken a vicious pleasure in drowning the little bugs — but it seemed prudent, what with the way Peril's chest was heaving.

Illya stared at him for a long moment, then thrust out a hand. "Clothes," he demanded.

"Excuse me, what?" Had the Red Peril just asked Napoleon to strip off in front of him? A certain part of Napoleon twitched with enthusiasm. The rest of him just gawped.

Peril rolled his eyes. "Never mind," he said, and stalked past him into Napoleon's closet.

Oh. To sew a fresh set of bugs into, to track him during the mission. That made a bit more sense than the admittedly tawdry scene his brain had been planning. Napoleon took a deep breath, pulled himself together. Maybe the situation, though far from ideal, could still be salvaged if only he could kick his brain, usually teeming with countless faultless pick-up lines, into gear.

He was still trying and discarding possible expressions of his feelings when Illya emerged with his selected ensemble.

What Napoleon should have said: "You rescued my suit from Salazar's mansion! Thank you, Peril."

What his brain went with instead: "You chose _that_ tie to go with a _Balenciaga_?"

He really wasn't very good at this whole "confessing" thing, was he.

* * *

Napoleon checked his watch. Five minutes to twelve. He thrust his hands into his pockets, shoulders bunched together for warmth, willing the time to pass quickly.

Behind him was a bustling neighborhood park, filled with old men hunched up in winter coats playing chess, gap-toothed children running and playing, their mothers watching them from park benches and chatting volubly in New World Spanish and various indigenous languages. And somewhere on the edges lurked Peril on his motorbike. Napoleon couldn't see him, which was kind of the point. He couldn't hear him either, because a voice link would be too detectable within the close confines of a car. All he had was an oscillator for transmitting Morse code, embedded in his left wristcuff.

Maybe that was for the best. Things had gotten awkward, to say the least, after their latest fashion dispute, which hadn't pleased Gaby one bit. She'd turned to Napoleon with an arched eyebrow, as if to say, _how the hell did you fuck_ that _up?_

The trouble, of course, was that he was going about this topsy-turvy. You didn't declare your love for someone out of the blue. You offered little tokens of affection, spent time talking, took them to concerts, to candlelit dinners, to bed.

Except that any gifts Napoleon tried to give would immediately be deemed evidence of Napoleon's crass capitalistic instincts. As for spending time together, they _already_ spent all their time together. And most of that was either occupied by pointed barbs or brooding silences. Not to mention the man was so sexually repressed the task of getting him into bed felt positively herculean.

It was almost as if Peril had been expressly engineered to be immune to Napoleon's charms. Heck, for all Napoleon knew, he actually _had_ been.

He was still ruminating on how KGB's anti-honeytrap training might work when a black Oldsmobile with tinted windows pulled up in front of him. He took quick note of the number plate. Local registration. The back doors swung open and two men emerged, wearing identical ill-fitting suits and dark glasses. Same height, same greasy black hair...they could have been twins if the one shaved off his mustache. Which he really ought to, because it made him look like a walrus.

"Afternoon, gentlemen. Or morning, actually. You're a little early to the party," Napoleon said genially.

"Hands up, spread your legs," came the brusque reply from Clean-shaven.

Napoleon raised an eyebrow, but complied. They frisked him efficiently and professionally. He'd not bothered to carry a weapon, anticipating the pat-down, and so they found nothing. The suitcase sitting at his feet was subjected to the same treatment. They made no reaction to finding it empty.

"Get in," the same man commanded.

"Okay, okay." Napoleon held up his hands in a placating gesture. He cast a quick glance at the park behind him. He still couldn't see his back-up. But surely Peril would be in position. The man was early to everything. And there were always the trackers Peril had so meticulously sewn into his clothes, and embedded in the case. He would be okay.

Napoleon slid gracefully into the car, and was promptly sandwiched on both sides. No sooner had the doors closed than the car moved off, tires screeching.

"Are we in a rush?" Napoleon asked mildly as they made an abrupt left turn, then an immediate right, in what was certifiably a maze of a neighborhood, as Illya had proclaimed. He was roundly ignored.

Napoleon sat back and took stock of his fellow travelers. They were tense, but focused. The driver took corners like he was driving in Formula One. Professionals, then. And based on Clean-shaven's accent, locals. Who could have sent them, trained them? The drug cartels? He found it hard to imagine that Salazar would choose to tangle with his old pals, who were surely already begrudging about his new life. Napoleon moved one hand unobtrusively over the other and began to tap out Morse against his left wristcuff. He'd gotten two digits into the license plate number when Walrus noticed. "Stop that," he said sharply, moving Napoleon's hand away.

Napoleon shook him off. "Can't blame a man for a nervous tic," he argued.

"Yes, but you don't have any nervous tics, do you, Polo?" The blond-haired man in the front passenger seat turned and removed his shades. Napoleon's jaw went slack. "Or should I address you instead as Napoleon Solo?"

For the first time in living memory, Napoleon found himself speechless.

Marco smiled at Napoleon's shock. "Hello, handsome," he cooed.

"Marco." Napoleon's mind raced to piece together his lover from the night before and this stranger mocking him from the front seat. Their meeting at the bar had clearly been no accident. And now Napoleon had an explanation for why his clothes had seemed a little more rumpled than he'd left them, when he'd emerged from his post-coital shower.

And for the distinctly familiar musk of cologne that hung in the close air of the car.

Peril was right. He was a terrible spy.

But how did Marco know his actual identity? And if he'd approached Napoleon already knowing his identity, why hadn't he kidnapped Napoleon then and there, instead of letting Napoleon return to his hotel? The questions just kept on multiplying.

"I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess that you're not really all that interested in art," Napoleon said.

"The Rembrandt? I couldn't care less. What I want is the microdot." Marco's English was a good deal more confident than it had been last night, too.

"I don't have the microdot on me. But I can lead you to it." Or a fake version of it, at least, hidden in the crevice of the painting, which Napoleon had hastily put together with Peril's photographic equipment. Only the first ten letters of it were accurate, but that should be enough to fool a casual inspection.

Marco snorted. "Yes, I am sure, and into a trap set by your colleagues. No thanks." He produced a .45 Colt revolver from inside his jacket.

Napoleon's mouth went dry. "Really, Marco, is that necessary? What happened to _adoring Americans_?" Napoleon's sexual education hadn't penetrated sufficiently deeply into Marco's soul, that much was evident. He was going to have to work on that.

"Oh, I do," Marco assured him. "And you, I adored much more with your clothes off. Strip."

"I beg your pardon?"

"You heard me."

"I would have thought you'd already seen as much as you wanted to, last night," Napoleon said lightly, though his heart was beginning to hammer.

A second gun jammed itself into his ribs. "The rest of us haven't. Hurry up, or we do it for you," Clean-shaven threatened.

Napoleon ignored the goon and appealed to Marco, who seemed to have the most authority of the four. "It wasn't there when you searched last night, and it's not going to be there now."

"I am fully aware, darling. I am also aware that your clothes hide all manner of trackers, leading your colleagues closer to us with every passing minute. So —" Marco's voice went from sultry to ice-cold in the space of a second — "strip."

In principle, Napoleon had no particular objection to baring himself in front of other people. He considered his body a work of art, and he enjoyed flaunting it. But there was something particularly humiliating about being forced to display himself at gunpoint, under the dispassionate stares of three other fully-clothed men. Still, the gun wedged between his ribs left no avenue for resistance, so he sighed and decided to make the best of it, starting with his tie. He lifted his chin to the angle he knew best accentuated the long lines of his neck and tugged at the knot.

"Faster," growled Clean-shaven.

Napoleon sighed. Some people simply didn't appreciate fine art. He removed his tie with a slither of fabric. Walrus confiscated it and put it in the empty suitcase. It was soon followed by his watch, then his jacket. He was beginning to see where this was going.

He glanced surreptitiously in the rearview mirror as he unbuttoned his collar. There was now a second black Oldsmobile following close behind them. But no motorbike anywhere to be seen. Where the hell was Peril? If their rendezvous on the outskirts of Mexico City wasn't going to happen, their fallback plan was toast. Napoleon's future wellbeing rested entirely on Peril being out there, following him.

Maybe he wasn't there. Maybe Illya had decided that an "ignorant American with no fashion sense" wasn't worth the back-up, Napoleon thought bitterly.

But no. Napoleon shook off the thought. Peril was loyal as a bulldog and persistent as a bloodhound. Napoleon just had to do his best to hold out until he caught up.

Off came his shirt, then undershirt, as slowly as he dared. His skin prickled as it met unheated air, though the leather at his back quickly warmed to body temperature. Walrus made to stuff them into the suitcase, too.

"You know, that's going to wrinkle," Napoleon observed.

"Shut up." Another dig of the revolver.

"No, no, no, the man is quite right," Marco said, sounding amused. "We are not savages. Give me those shirts."

Walrus handed them over. Marco buried his nose in them and inhaled deeply. "Has anyone ever told you that you have a marvelous earthy scent?"

"Yes, actually. Has anyone ever told you you wear too much cologne?"

Marco pouted like a small child. "What's wrong with my cologne?" He took out the bottle — Canoë by Dana — and spritzed an overly-generous quantity into the air. Walrus promptly started to cough and splutter.

Marco scowled, put the perfume away. He jerked his head at Clean-Shaven. The revolver nosed at Napoleon's belt, urging him on to the next step in the process.

Napoleon unlaced his shoes, keeping every movement deliberate, and toed them off. Same with his socks. He undid his belt and zip, raised his hips to shimmy out of his trousers, complete with a seductive little wiggle of his hips, and handed them to Marco to fold along with his shirts.

"You are shameless, aren't you," Marco said, rapidly recovering his good humor. "No wonder you were the CIA's number one whore."

Napoleon shrugged off the insult. It was nothing he hadn't heard before. It also told him that whatever faction Marco represented, they were well-informed about his history. His skin prickled into gooseflesh once more.

It didn't escape Marco's notice. He leered nastily, and Napoleon wondered how he could have ever thought the man resembled Illya in the slightest. " _Everything_ off, please, Napoleon."

Napoleon grimaced at the use of his first name. "You know, I enjoyed this a lot more when it was just the two of us and I wasn't doing this at gunpoint."

"I quite understand. Truth be told, I feel the same. I will always cherish the memory of last night, Napoleon. Pity I will not get the chance to sample your delights again."

"Your loss, not mine," Napoleon said pleasantly, and proceeded to show Marco precisely what he would be missing.

Marco's face turned a gratifying shade of purple. "Give me the briefcase, and the shoes," he snarled at Walrus, who handed them over, complete with Napoleon's briefs. Marco stuffed the clothes he'd folded into the case, without a shred of care for their immaculate crease lines, and slammed it shut, leaving a little triangle of fabric poking out the side. Napoleon winced. So much for not being a savage.

"Pull over," Marco ordered, and the driver immediately swung the car to the kerb like it was a Formula One pit-stop. Marco opened the door. "Make sure Solo is delivered safely," he ordered, and left without so much as a by-your-leave. They pulled away again immediately.

Napoleon blinked. What happened to wanting the microdot? And who the hell was he supposed to be _delivered_ to? He glanced in the rear-view mirror, watched Marco disappear into the black car that had been following them. It peeled off in a different direction, taking all of Illya's trackers with them.

Well, damn. He was in a pickle. He had to figure a way out, now, while it was just three-to-one, before he was handed over to whoever had paid Marco and his goons to pick him up.

He kept his gaze fixed forward and studied Clean-shaven out of the corner of his eye. The man's revolver still pointed in his direction, but the barrel was no longer warm from contact with Napoleon's skin. They were underestimating him, possibly because he was naked and vulnerable. A tiny sliver of opportunity, and one he fully intended to exploit.

Napoleon shot a hand out and grabbed the gun. Clean-shaven jerked back, resisting, but Napoleon had developed quicksilver reflexes from years of pick-pocketing practice. He fastened his hand around the barrel and angled it upwards, squeezing Clean-shaven's finger against the trigger. Shots peppered the ceiling of the car. One, two, three, four, before Clean-shaven successfully wrested the gun from Napoleon's grip. Not enough. Still two bullets left.

A movement behind him. Walrus was scrambling for his own gun. Napoleon brought his elbow back in a short, sharp strike. Walrus's nose crunched audibly, and he let out a howl. Forward now for a right hook, which connected squarely with Clean-shaven's jaw.

The driver glanced back, assessing the situation, and sent the car in a right spin. Walrus crashed against the car door, Napoleon landed atop of him and finally Clean-shaven crushed them both. Napoleon gasped for air, giving Clean-shaven a chance to recover. He brought the butt of his gun down against Napoleon's temple, sending Napoleon reeling.

The car straightened out again, racing towards its destination. Walrus grabbed Napoleon around the waist, holding him down for Clean-shaven. He leveled his gun at Napoleon's chest. Napoleon flailed out with his foot, catching the muzzle with his big toe just as Clean-shaven fired. The shot flew astray, into the driver's shoulder. He hollered in pain and clutched at the entry wound. With only one hand on the wheel, the car began to skid. Napoleon lifted himself off the seat, slammed Walrus backwards. The grip around his waist loosened. One and a half down. Clean-shaven looked furious. He readied his last shot. Napoleon leaned forward and, in a move that owed more to chutzpah than sleight of hand, plucked the gun clean out of Clean-shaven's fingers. No one was more surprised than he was when it actually worked.

"Nobody move, or I shoot your comrade."

Everything went quiet very quickly after that. The car turned into a driveway, and the driver cut the engine. Clean-shaven put up his hands slowly. If looks could kill, Napoleon would be dead from the force of his glare alone. Fortunately six months' practice with Peril had gifted Napoleon considerable immunity.

"Open the door," Napoleon said to Walrus, who obeyed with more alacrity than Napoleon had counted on. "Out of the car," he added, half-turning to make sure Walrus complied. A glint of light caught his eye; Clean-shaven had seized on his moment of inattention to palm a knife, with surprising speed. Any feeling of comradely respect Napoleon may have extended towards the man disappeared when he threw said knife in Napoleon's direction. Napoleon flattened himself against the seat. The knife went into the hapless Walrus's thigh instead.

Time for a quick exit. Napoleon scrambled over Walrus, who was lying awkwardly, half-in and half-out of the car, and through the open door. A hand landed on his ankle, preventing his escape. Napoleon swore under his breath; Clean-shaven just wouldn't give up. Napoleon had no choice. He fired, and Clean-shaven stumbled back, his arm bleeding. Napoleon made a break for it. His hands met the asphalt first, then the rest of his unprotected body. No time to worry about that; he had to get moving.

Then he saw the feet. Four pairs of jackboots and a more elegant pair of Bruno Maglis. Suddenly Walrus's spirit of cooperation made a lot more sense.

_Click click click click._

Napoleon lifted his head at the ominous sounds of safeties being unlatched, squinting against the sun, and found himself mooning five men and four Luger pistols. Five very familiar men.

His day just kept getting better and better.

" _Buenas tardes_ , gentlemen. I trust you passed a... _tranquil_ evening," he said to the four guards.

The words would have come out to better effect if he wasn't bare-ass naked in front of Salazar and his men. They were openly smirking as two of them came forward to haul him to his feet. While one of them snapped a pair of handcuffs on his wrists, Napoleon inspected the damage. Some abrasions from his skin glazing across the uneven asphalt, but nothing serious. And he had never been more conscious of how ridiculous the nude male body looked in the harsh light of day, with all its floppy bits dangling.

Napoleon looked around him, shivering slightly in the chill December air. This wasn't Salazar's mansion. It looked more like an dilapidated old factory. The chances of Peril and Gaby tracking him here were slim to none.

How the hell had he miscalculated this so badly? First blundering into bed with a man who'd turned out to be a plant, and now winding up in the hands of Salazar, who was frankly incompetent?

"Three of you bring him inside and soften him up," Salazar ordered. "Antonio, you stay and help me deal with this." He gestured towards the Oldsmobile and its occupants, who were all variously bleeding and looking mad as hell about it. Salazar would presumably pay them off — maybe topping it off with a little extra, as hazard wages — and send them on their way. He _hoped_. Salazar's band of amateurs could do enough damage without adding three of Marco's angry professionals into the mix.

He was frog-marched through the dimly-lit corridors of the abandoned factory, the ground cold and hard beneath his bare feet. Finally they came to an empty, cavernous room — all the better to hear the echoes of the screams, he supposed. Light streamed in through panels of smashed windows, the glass still lying in tiny twinkling shards on the floor. Napoleon swallowed. He had a feeling he wasn't going to enjoy this.

"Listen, fellas, I hope there's no hard feelings over last night —" Napoleon staggered at the punch in his stomach, the handcuffs making it difficult to maintain his balance. A second slug to his face sent him crashing into what felt like a billion tiny daggers digging into his skin. He arched his back involuntarily, trying to rear away from the agony, but every new movement only sent more points of pain exploding across his back. Finally he just lay there, panting, gritting his teeth with the effort of keeping from crying out.

The men smiled, and walked forward, their boots crunching the glass with impunity. Two of them stood him up again — the glass was even worse on the soles of his feet — and knocked him down again. Napoleon curled in on himself, trying to reduce his surface area, and this time he couldn't contain a little moan.

They repeated the maneuver several more times before Salazar and Antonio walked back in. The men stepped aside as Salazar walked over to Napoleon, a twisted smile on his face. He lifted a dainty shoe and ground the sole into Napoleon's chest. Napoleon balled his hands into fists, and refused to give him the satisfaction of a groan.

"Enjoying yourself, Mr. Solo? I know my men are. They volunteered specially for this duty."

"And after I treated them so well." So much for using tranqs. If they hadn't had plenty of other topics to squabble over, Peril would have said he ought to have shot them outright. At the moment, Napoleon felt just bloodthirsty enough to agree with him. He looked up at Salazar. "Let's just save us both a lot of time and pain by getting this out of the way, shall we? I do. not. have. the. microdot."

"Is that so? Then why is it that your handler did not find my microdot where you claimed to have dropped it off?"

A cold hand gripped Napoleon's heart. Marco and Salazar knowing Napoleon's identity was one thing. He was a front-line agent and had to take that risk. But handlers were supposed to remain in the shadows, always. Salazar being privy to Waverly's actions meant U.N.C.L.E.'s Mexico operation must be even more compromised than even he knew.

"Meanwhile you, Mr. Solo, have a reputation for being rather cavalier with the secrets entrusted to your care."

Napoleon frowned. "Now that's just outright slander."

And it was, too. The consequences of selling Agency secrets had been spelled out in full and painful detail by Sanders when he'd traded his fifteen-year prison sentence for ten years of CIA purgatory. He might be avaricious, but he wasn't stupid.

"And a bit hypocritical, don't you think?" Napoleon continued. "Cavalier is what I'd call leaving an important document tucked into a rare painting when a famous art thief is in town."

"Had I but known you were in Mexico," said Salazar through gritted teeth, "I would have taken additional steps to protect both the painting and the microdot."

"That's too bad," Napoleon said sympathetically. "Rather a poor showing for an information broker, wasn't it?" Not quite the most diplomatic thing to say, perhaps, but then Napoleon had never had much of an instinct for self-preservation. The remark earned him a kick in the stomach from the nearest guard. The rest of the men piled on, and Salazar let them.

The phone rang. Salazar held up a finger for silence and went to the wall to answer it. Napoleon gulped in air, trying to quiet the pounding in his ears so he could eavesdrop on the conversation.

"Yes, he is here," Salazar said, glancing in Napoleon's direction. "Was it in his clothes? No? A pity. Yes, there was some trouble. Oh, no, minor trouble. He has not given it up, no." Then a long silence, during which Salazar nodded vigorously. "Yes. Yes, fast, I understand. Yes, it will be done."

So — Salazar was answering to someone else. Most likely, the unknown client. Who, for some reason, had chosen to make Salazar execute the process of sweating the intel out of Napoleon, rather than do it themselves. Why? What did they hope to gain — or, more likely, hide — by adding this level of indirection?

At least that assuaged Napoleon's pride, somewhat, knowing it wasn't Salazar who'd out-maneuvered him. But that didn't make his immediate future any less terrifying.

Salazar replaced the receiver and whispered something in Antonio's ear. Antonio nodded, handed over his pistol, and left with the other guards. Napoleon stared at the Luger in Salazar's sweaty palms, the safety uncocked. "Are you sure you know how to use that thing?" he asked warily.

"I may not be an expert, Mr Solo, but I think I can do some damage. Ah. Put it over here," Salazar said to his men, who'd returned carrying a metal bedframe. The sight of it hollowed Napoleon's stomach. He'd half-expected this ever since Marco had ordered him to remove his clothes.

Two of the guards grabbed him by the arms and manhandled him towards the bed. They laid him atop the cross-hatched base. Napoleon squirmed uncomfortably against the metal bars pressing into his back, but he had to admit it was a step up from the shards of glass.

"You know, I've been in this position before, but usually my partners have been generous enough to supply a mattress."

Salazar snorted. "You think I want to fuck you? We are not perverts." He made a signal with two fingers, and his men grabbed Napoleon, one to each limb, and manacled him to the bed-rails.

"So far all the signs are pointing to pervert," Napoleon said mildly.

Antonio stepped forward, snarling, and Napoleon tensed for a strike. But Salazar held him back. "Go get the equipment," he said instead.

A nasty little smile came over Antonio's face. "Yes, boss," he said, and left. In less than a minute, he was back. Napoleon craned his neck to see what he was carrying.

The blood drained from his face when he realized what it was.

God, why him. Why was it always him.

"No smart remarks now, Mr. Solo?" Salazar said. "I am told you are well acquainted with the effects of repeated electric shocks on the human body. My friends in South America have developed an interesting variant of this form of torture." He knocked on the bedframe. It responded with a hollow, metallic ring. Metal. A conductive material. _Fuck._

"Two electrodes," Salazar continued, holding them up for Napoleon to see. "One, we attach to the bedframe. The other...well, you seemed very keen to give this some action," he said, and grabbed Napoleon by his cock.

"No." It sounded dangerously close to pleading, but Napoleon couldn't help it. He tried to jerk away, but Salazar's grip was implacable. He wound the bare wire around its base three times, then let Napoleon sag back onto the bed.

"This doesn't change the fact that I have no idea where the microdot is," Napoleon warned, his heart in his throat.

"We'll see about that," Salazar said serenely. He crossed over to the power supply, placed a hand on the switch, and uttered the one word that Napoleon had come to hate the most in the English language.

"Ready?"

Napoleon closed his eyes.

His world exploded in white.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this fic, Waverly and Gaby's dialogue is rendered with British English spelling and punctuation conventions, while Napoleon and Illya are rendered in American. I grew up spelling British English but that seems odd to use for a fic told from Napoleon's point-of-view. On the other hand, having Waverly use spellings like _humor_ was just too bizarre, so I decided to go with this editorial choice. In case anyone picked up on that.
> 
>  _Ten years of CIA purgatory_ : if I'm reading the date on Napoleon's mugshot right, Napoleon was captured in 1958, which means he's only been in the CIA for five years at the time of the events of the movie, which I presume to be 1963 since JFK was on the television. However the film also makes it clear he only has five years left to go. I've justified it here with the CIA making a deal that takes five years off Napoleon's prison sentence if he comes to work for them, an offer he couldn't refuse. If you can read his arrest placard properly and it actually says 1953, please let me know, but I'll be sticking with this timeline for this fic.
> 
> The cologne Canoe is actually spelled without the umlaut over the e, but since it's pronounced _cano-way_ (and since a perfume that sounds like a watercraft seemed a bit ridiculous) I thought the additional pronunciation hint might be useful. It seems to have been popular in Central America in the era of this fic, and is still sold today.
> 
> The torture described at the end is called _parrilla_ and was widely used in South America in the 1970s. But there is no technical reason why it should not have been more sporadically used earlier, say by a drug cartel. It was often much worse than what I've described above. Life is crueller than fiction.


	3. Chapter 3

He just...took it.

Napoleon lay there, and he took it, because there was nothing else he _could_ do.

He'd tried stoic silence. He'd tried screaming his lungs out. He'd tried feeding Salazar misinformation. He'd told them the microdot had indeed been in his clothes and implied that Marco was double-crossing Salazar. He'd claimed that the microdot was in his hotel room, hidden in a wall sconce, on the off-chance that Illya and Gaby would catch Salazar's men in the act of retrieving it and trace him back here.

Salazar hadn't taken the bait.

Instead he kept demanding to know who Napoleon had sold the message to. Because apparently once you stole one measly painting — okay, forty-two — suddenly you compulsively hawked every potentially valuable item that passed through your hands, even if you had no fucking clue what it was. Which might have worked for Salazar, but Napoleon liked to have some idea of what he was selling before he sold it.

How the hell had Salazar even known who to contact, anyway? Put a classified ad in the local paper? _FOUND: one encrypted microdot, in El Ángel. Will interested parties please contact Francisco Salazar, former drug lord. Extortionate finder's fee applies._ How colossally idiotic would you have to be to go for _that_?

Napoleon could see only one way out. But he drew the line at giving Salazar the name of his fence, or any of his other contacts in Mexico City. They'd just end up in the same position he was in now: clueless and hurting. Maybe Marvin Johnson, being a trained CIA agent, might be able to handle them if they went after him. But maybe not, if they took him by surprise, as Napoleon had been surprised.

Things only got worse when after one cringing, servile phone call Salazar switched tacks and began to ask him what the message had actually _said_. Napoleon would have rolled his eyes at the question, if his eyelids didn't already hurt so much. Napoleon was no codebreaker. Sure, he could handle encrypting and decrypting CIA and U.N.C.L.E. communications given a codebook and adequate instruction, but a random string of letters in an unknown cipher?

Uncle Rudi had once told him that there were two kinds of torture. Torture for the purpose of extracting information, and torture for its own sake. Somehow Salazar had managed to fuse the two into a fresh category of horror, in demanding answers Napoleon had no way of knowing.

"I am losing patience, Mr. Solo. What was in the message?"

"Recipe for Scotch eggs?" Napoleon rasped out.

Salazar sighed and cranked up the power. Napoleon's body jerked helplessly as the current skewered through him, seeking paths of least resistance. All semblance of sentient thought fled Napoleon's brain, replaced by a prolonged, silent scream. Little by little the air was driven out of his lungs until he was running on empty, reduced to a pain-racked shell. He felt his mind turn in on itself, dissociating, Salazar's insistent questions buzzing in his ear like so much white noise.

And then it was gone, and Napoleon was left to swallow desperate gulps of air before the vicious cycle began again.

In his rare moments of respite he drifted, imagining himself floating several feet above his abused body. He watched the sun dance with the motes of dust in the air, watched it glance off the shards of glass and twinkle against the ceiling in a cruel imitation of open sky. He watched the shadows creep along the wall, lengthening and dimming until they eventually merged with darkness.

This wasn't how he'd thought he'd be spending his day, when he'd woken up in the morning. He'd thought he'd be telling Illya —

Oh God, Illya. He was going to die without ever telling Illya that he loved him. With their last interaction being them flinging insults at each other.

Would Gaby tell him, after? _He loved you, you know, except he was always too much of a coward to say._

No. She would never inflict that on Illya. She would take his secret to the grave, just as he was about to.

He wished, now, desperately wished, that he'd told Illya. That he'd had the chance to kiss him. To wrap his arms around him. To peel off his clothes and feast on the sight of him. To slowly explore every inch of him. To fuck him gently into a bed. To pound him roughly into a bed.

Napoleon wondered, with a touch of hysteria, whether his equipment would ever be up to the task again.

He forced the thought to the back of his mind. The question was moot until he got rescued, and right now the prospect of rescue was growing increasingly unlikely. Even if Illya and Gaby were out there searching for him, there was no guarantee they'd ever find him. The trail was getting inexorably colder, just as the night was getting colder. If no one had noticed his screams by now, his increasingly hoarse voice was unlikely to reach them. Even Salazar was losing steam, and it wasn't like he was the one putting in any effort into simply _existing_.

"This is enough for today," Salazar announced, with obvious disappointment. "But tomorrow, we begin anew." He called for reinforcements, and Antonio and gang gave way to Jorge and night crew, who fortunately weren't as emotionally invested in making him suffer, but weren't terribly interested in making his situation any more comfortable either. They doused him with freezing cold water in a desultory attempt to "clean him up", as Salazar had ordered, leaving him to shiver for the rest of the night, unable to curl up against himself for warmth. Even so Napoleon lapped up what moisture he could, and was grateful for the tiny mercy of rest.

He could have sworn that only five minutes had passed since he'd dozed off into fitful sleep, but the sun was already up once more when Napoleon was slapped back into wakefulness. He opened his eyes to find himself staring again into Salazar's piggish black eyes. His heart sank back into the pit of his stomach. He'd been hoping for a shade of glacier blue.

"Good morning, Mr. Solo." Salazar smiled at him toothily. Napoleon shuddered away from Salazar's touch, but there was only so far he could go, and he had to submit to the faux caress, a solitary point of warmth against his stubbled cheek. Salazar clucked his tongue. "You're frozen, poor thing. Do not worry, we'll soon warm you up again."

A dull dread overtook Napoleon at Salazar's words. He wasn't sure how much more of this he could take. In Rome, he'd spent perhaps an hour suffering Uncle Rudi's ministrations before Illya had swooped to his rescue. It had been, what, nineteen hours now since he'd fallen into Marco and Salazar's clutches. He was exhausted to the bone. He just wanted this to be over, one way or another.

"Ready for another round?"

"I'd rather not, but thanks for the invitation."

Salazar bristled. "I'm afraid you don't get a say in the proceedings, Mr. Solo. Unless, of course, you're ready to tell me what I want to know."

"Remind me what that was? I've quite forgotten."

Somehow that got a rise out of Salazar. "You think this is a game, Mr. Solo? That you can just draw things out until your comrades rescue you? In that case we should perhaps move on to something a little more...permanent."

While the idea of no more electric shocks was music to Napoleon's ears, he didn't much like the sound of permanence. _Death_ was permanent. Though right now, death wasn't sounding like the worst thing in the world.

Salazar disappeared from Napoleon's field of vision for a moment. When he returned he was carrying an elegant black walking stick. He turned it to show Napoleon the stylized 'S' carved into its silver knob, then drew the hidden sword from its hollow.

"An heirloom of my family," he explained.

"No doubt stolen from the rightful heir," Napoleon responded, eyeing its sharp point with some trepidation.

"My grandfather was the eldest of three sons and therefore _was_ the rightful heir. It is only right that this belongs to me." He pressed the point against Napoleon's temple, stopping just short of drawing blood. "You are a connoisseur, Mr. Solo. A refined weapon, is it not? So much more elegant than a gun."

"Why don't you hand me a gun, and we'll find out?"

" _This_ is also a work of art," Salazar continued blithely, letting the blade graze Napoleon's cheek. "It would be a shame if anything were to happen to it...would it not, Mr. Solo?"

They were going to mutilate his face. Napoleon could cry with the sheer injustice of it all. His face had survived World War II and Korea. It had survived jealous boyfriends, jealous husbands — and, on occasion, jealous wives. It had survived five years of spying for the CIA and six months of Peril. And now Salazar, of all people, was going to undo all the hard work that went into looking this beautiful with a single stab of his sword.

"Has a cat got your tongue at last, Mr. Solo?" Salazar grinned in triumph.

Napoleon controlled the trembling in his voice with some effort. "I wonder," he said, and stopped, letting the words linger in the air.

"What? What do you wonder?" Salazar's eyes narrowed.

"What your great-grandfather would say if he saw you now."

Salazar shrugged. "He would have understood. He belonged to a certain class of men, Mr. Solo, who were implacable in the face of their enemies, and allowed no quarter to anyone who crossed them. My branch of the family may have suffered as a result, but I have always felt it was a trait to be admired, and emulated..." Salazar paused in the middle of his monologue. "Did you hear something?"

"Not a thing," Napoleon lied, hope rising in his chest, because that had been the unmistakable sound of a door being kicked in with such vigor it had probably splintered to pieces.

Antonio and his men had heard it too. "Stay here, boss," Antonio warned, and the four guards drew their sidearms and went to investigate. Salazar remained with Napoleon, nervously fingering the hilt of his sword. Napoleon stayed calm, waiting for the first blood-curdling scream.

It came twenty seconds later. The blood promptly drained from Salazar's face.

"You know what you just said about your great-grandfather giving no quarter?" Napoleon said, just as a loud thump signaled the demise of the second guard.

Salazar stumbled back a step. The hand holding the sword began to tremble.

"There's a man just like that heading this way."

A shot rang out, much closer now, leaving only one man standing between Salazar and doom.

"Your blade may be an elegant weapon, but it sure as hell isn't going to stop a Makarov PM."

Salazar glanced between his sword and the door.

"So if you want to live, I advise you to run. _Now._ "

A ringing gunshot punctuated Napoleon's advice. The last of the four guards stumbled into the room, clutching a bloodied hand to his chest, leaving a trail of dark spots on the floor behind him.

"What are you doing, Antonio? You're supposed to be protecting me, not leading him here!" Salazar hissed, his eyes blown wide with panic.

Antonio didn't respond, intent only on putting as much distance between himself and the door as possible. In his haste he tripped over his own feet, but continued to scrabble forward at a crawl, unwilling to risk the two seconds it would take to pick himself up. There must have been glass under his hands and knees, but that didn't seem to matter to the guy. All that mattered was getting the hell away from the doorway, and the hulking shadow that had appeared within it.

Napoleon's heart lifted, because there was no mistaking Illya. Who else in this city had to bend to get through a door, and played the part of an avenging angel so damn effectively? Though his relief was very much tempered by the awareness of how pathetic he looked, naked and cuffed to a bed with a wire wound around his penis. This could be blackmail material for the ages.

But there was zero levity in Illya's eyes when he stepped into the room and took in Napoleon's condition, only horror. Which quickly turned to rage as his gaze ventured towards Napoleon's nether regions.

"Cowboy?"

Napoleon did his best to wave. "Still breathing, Peril."

The reassurance did little to appease Illya, whose gaze snapped back up to Salazar. "All you have done to him, I will deliver back on you tenfold," he swore, and god _damn_ if that voice didn't shrivel Napoleon's balls and turn him on all at the same time.

It had the former effect, at least, on Salazar, who promptly dropped his sword and raised his hands in surrender. "Piotr, please. You wouldn't hurt a defenseless man, would you?" he bleated.

Illya's gun didn't waver. "For you, I make exception."

"No, please. I'll give you anything. Money. Women. You want your friend back? You can have him."

"He is not yours to give," Illya snarled. He took another step closer.

"Antonio, _now_!"

At the command, Illya whirled around to face the new danger, Napoleon craning his neck to follow the action. The guard had taken advantage of their distraction to rise to his feet and arm himself with a jagged piece of glass. To what end, Napoleon had no idea: throwing it was unlikely to inflict much more harm than a cut; rushing Illya was out of the question now that Salazar had taken away the advantage of surprise, and Antonio knew it. He looked utterly petrified, and not a little betrayed.

 _Just drop it,_ Napoleon willed him. _You've brought a shard of glass to a gunfight with an elite KGB agent. Drop it before it's..._

Too late. The retort of a gunshot echoed through the cavernous room. When Napoleon opened his eyes again, Antonio was on the ground, unmoving.

Napoleon's stomach lurched. Then lurched again as his world tilted on its axis along with that accursed bedframe. He dropped a full inch before the handcuffs caught, leaving him dangling from his right wrist and ankle. The thin but sturdy metal cut into his joints, but he had more things on his mind right now than the blood supply to his extremities.

Because that had all been a feint. Salazar had thrown his guard to the wolves so he'd have the chance to tip the bedframe over and use Napoleon as a human shield, and worst of all, the power supply was on _his_ side —

He heard, rather than saw, the twisting of the dial.

The sudden agony ripped a scream from Napoleon's throat. His body seized, trying to escape the pain, but the spikes of electricity were everywhere, setting every nerve ending on fire. A hand clamped shut around his heart, squeezing so inexorably it would surely burst. Napoleon's eyes rolled up sightlessly, the smell of burning flesh filling his nostrils. Dimly, beyond the buzzing in his ears, he heard someone shouting his name.

 _Illya!_ His mouth couldn't form the word. _The power supply. The dial. Please..._

An eternal second later, the current cut off and Napoleon was abruptly righted again. He turned his head the fraction he could and saw the wires dangling from Illya's hand. He'd gone for the most direct route and simply ripped them out of the power supply. Salazar was nowhere to be seen.

Napoleon breathed. It was over. It was actually over. And now Illya was checking over him, wide-eyed concern in his blue, blue eyes. God, he was achingly beautiful.

"Thought...I was never gonna see you again," Napoleon croaked out.

A pained look passed over Illya's face. "Sorry it took so long," he said gruffly. "Gaby will be here soon. Do you wish me to take care of —" He waved his hand in the general direction of Napoleon's crotch.

The idea of Illya handling his limp cock was mortifying. The idea of Gaby seeing was even worse. Napoleon nodded weakly. He sucked in a breath as Illya's callused fingers closed around his penis, but his touch was infinitely gentle. Even so a hiss escaped Napoleon's lips when Illya started peeling wire from scorched flesh.

Illya's glance flicked back up to his face, expression uncertain, two spots of pink high in his cheeks.

"It's okay," Napoleon reassured him, though it really, really wasn't. "I just...usually show to better advantage than this."

His flippancy had the desired effect. Illya returned to his self-appointed task with only the briefest of eye-rolls, and this time Napoleon managed to bite his tongue until the operation was complete.

Illya shrugged off his flak jacket and draped it over Napoleon, shielding his modesty. "Handcuffs next." He moved slowly to the head of the bed, telegraphing every movement as if Napoleon were a skittish kitten. Right now, he felt as weak as one.

Blood coursed back through his arms as they were released from their uncomfortable position, igniting a fresh wave of pain.

"Illya —"

"Shh, is okay," Illya said, his voice more tender than Napoleon had ever heard it. "I take care of your feet now, Cowboy." This time Napoleon couldn't suppress a moan that chased away the confession he'd intended. The agony was compounded when Illya lifted him off the bedframe, sending his head spinning.

Napoleon clutched at the strong arms cradling him. "Uh, Peril, I'm gonna —"

"Hold on." Illya lowered him to the floor with some haste. For a moment Napoleon mourned the loss of the heat the man radiated. Then Illya settled down behind him and pulled him into the circle of his arms.

Napoleon melted into his warmth, letting his head loll against Illya's shoulder. With one hand Illya readjusted the flak jacket for greater protection, tucking its edges around him, while his other hand ran circles over Napoleon's back, prying out tiny nuggets of glass that had gotten wedged in his flesh, kneading at the grooves that felt etched into his skin. Napoleon sighed in bliss.

So this was what a refuge felt like.

All the words that Napoleon had suppressed for the past day, month, half a year, rushed to his lips. The proceedings of the last twenty-four hours had left him drained, emptied of any value he might have to offer Illya — but he knew, beyond certainty, that he could at least offer him _this_.

"Illya —"

"Yes, Cowboy?" Illya's gaze hit him with full force. Napoleon's heart skipped a beat. Then another. Which rapidly devolved into a crazy staccato rhythm.

Napoleon grinned giddily. Was this what being in love felt like? It had been so long he couldn't even remember.

Illya returned his smile with a frown. He pressed two fingers to Napoleon's neck. His eyes widened. "We must get you to a medic."

"Not yet, Illya, listen —"

A hand clamped over his mouth. "Quiet," Illya growled. "Someone's coming."

Napoleon listened, and heard the footsteps, light and stealthy, rapidly approaching. Perfect. Of course this stupid abandoned Mexican factory would suddenly turn into Grand Central Station just as he was trying to make his move.

Illya shoved Napoleon unceremoniously aside and took up a kneeling position square between him and the intruder. Which was _completely unnecessary_ , Napoleon might be useless right now but that didn't mean Illya got to play hero — but Illya blithely ignored Napoleon's squeak of outrage, and Napoleon knew better than to interrupt him while he had a gun trained on a target and his finger on the trigger. So Napoleon just watched the toned muscles of Illya's back, tensed under his dark shirt, and decided that whoever the interloper was, they deserved to be shot.

Gaby burst into the room, brandishing a gun in each hand, eyes blazing like a little spitfire, and Napoleon was suddenly glad not to have voiced the thought.

Gaby's keen gaze swept the room. "Solo?" she asked tersely.

Illya stepped aside, allowing her to see his sorry condition. "Alive."

"Salazar?"

"Got away. Is no matter. I know where he lives. A bullet was too good for him."

A chill ran down Napoleon's spine at Illya's grim pronouncement. Gaby raised her eyebrows and crouched down beside Napoleon, her eyes raking clinically over his body. "Salazar must really have done a number on you," she observed.

"He needs a medic," Illya interposed.

"Already on the way."

Illya nodded once in acknowledgment and walked over to the bank of broken windows, gazing out onto the street like he could will the ambulance into existence just by looking. Apparently further snuggling wasn't on the agenda.

Gaby threaded her fingers through Napoleon's hair, smoothing it down. He didn't even want to think about what it looked like just now. "Thanks for holding on. We came as soon as we could."

"Actually, a couple minutes' delay on your part would've been nice," Napoleon croaked at her.

She looked confused for a second, but when he tilted his head toward Illya her eyes widened. "Oh. _Ohhhhh._ Well, considering all the times you did it to _us_..."

"Karma. I get it." He didn't mean to be short, but he had to conserve his syllables. With the euphoria of his rescue ebbing fast away, a multitude of injuries were beginning to clamor for attention in vociferous chorus. He didn't have much time.

Fortunately for him, Gaby was totally on board. "I'll get out of your hair then."

"Help me up first."

A frown appeared between Gaby's eyes. "Solo, you're not in any shape to —"

"I'm not doing this lying down."

"Okay," she said, though her skeptical tone made it clear what she thought of Napoleon's obstinacy. She hooked her hands under his armpits and pulled upwards.

"Wow, you're strong," Napoleon said, and staggered, almost carrying her off balance.

"Solo!" Gaby hurriedly restored him to his former position on the floor.

"Uh, maybe confessing from down here'll be fine," Napoleon slurred. A swirl of black spots clouded his vision. No. He couldn't pass out. He had something to say to Illya, and he had to say it now.

But his body was still hell-bent on reinforcing that any change in altitude was a Very Bad Idea. It had done that before, in the wake of their escape from Uncle Rudi's lair, following the trail of corpses, ducking through the CO2-laser-cut hole in the security fence. One moment he'd been some approximation of fine, the next moment he was hunched over with his head between his knees, trying to ride the waves of nausea assaulting his system, Peril hovering uncertainly at the periphery of his vision.

At least Illya was less reticent now than he had been six months ago, because when Napoleon risked opening his eyes again, Gaby had vanished and a fuzzy version of Illya had taken her place. Which was convenient, because there was no way Mohammed was gonna make it to the mountain in this state. But, dammit, the mountain wasn't supposed to look so distressed, not when it was about to receive a declaration of love.

A hand landed on his chest, searingly hot, at which point his heart decided to abandon its erratic tattoo and began trying to tunnel its way out of his ribcage, which only seemed to agitate Illya all the more. He was saying something, his eyes wide and his tone harried, but the words were drowned out by the blood thundering in Napoleon's ears.

"Hey, 's okay," Napoleon tried to placate him, anything to get that frantic look out of Illya's eyes, but his tongue felt thick and unresponsive, and Illya's forehead creased into a still-deeper frown at whatever gobbledy-gook actually made it out of his mouth. Apparently he'd overestimated the number of coherent syllables he had left.

He was too tired to even feel betrayed by his own body's weakness. With the last of his reserves he groped for Illya's hand. If words were failing them, a gesture would have to do. He missed, but Illya's hand found his, and he interlaced his fingers with Illya's, willing them to say everything he couldn't.

A cloak of warmth enveloped Napoleon, spreading from their enjoined hands to the rest of him, beckoning him towards his rest with a promise of comfort and safety.

 _I love you,_ he thought, and surrendered to blessed oblivion.

* * *

Napoleon woke up with a confession on his lips and no one to confess it to.

He raised his head painfully and surveyed his surroundings. They were all too familiar, from the two chairs by his bed to the plastic potted plant standing sentinel in the corner. He was in the medical wing at U.N.C.L.E. HQ. A machine stood next to him, beeping in steady rhythm with his heartbeat, but otherwise all was quiet.

This...wasn't the way it was supposed to be. Usually the seats were occupied. Illya would be in the nearer of the two, back ramrod straight, arms crossed against his chest, absurdly long legs stretched out before him. Gaby would be shamelessly using him as a pillow, leaning against his shoulder if she was awake, or curled up in his lap, if asleep. Napoleon hadn't realized until now just how comforting that sight had been.

Napoleon let his head flop back onto the pillow and shut his eyes, cataloging his hurts to distract from the emptiness of the room. The results were mostly unsurprising: his head throbbed and his ribs ached and his wrists and ankles chafed and his entire back was sore and really, would it kill the medics to be a _little_ more generous with the painkillers? The only part of him that _didn't_ hurt was flopped numbly between his legs like an alien appendage, which was more alarming than the rest of his symptoms put together.

He snaked a hand beneath the starched white sheet to better assess its condition, which was, naturally, when the baize green door swung open and Gaby walked in, coffee mug in hand. She stopped short when she saw his eyes open. And took in the angle of his arm under the sheet.

"Oh my god," Gaby said. "Solo, I leave you alone for five minutes and you wake up and immediately start —"

"Just checking that all parties are present and correct, Miss Teller," Napoleon rasped out as primly as he could, withdrawing his hand when he found the relevant party intact, though _correct_ would have been a stretch at this stage. "Besides, you could have knocked."

"After three days of not getting any response? Knocking got a bit old."

"Three _days_?" Napoleon gaped.

"You," Gaby said, "sound terrible. Water. I'll get you some." She set down her mug and disappeared out the door, reappearing with a jugful of water and a glass. "Doctor says she'll be with you shortly."

"She?" Napoleon echoed in dismay. That meant Dr. Kaur, the head of U.N.C.L.E. Medical and Napoleon's mortal nemesis. "Just my luck."

"What's wrong with Dr Kaur?" Gaby seemed amused by his discomfiture. "She's a very competent doctor who brooks absolutely no nonsense."

"Repeat that last bit to yourself and I think you'll see the problem."

Gaby rolled her eyes as she sank into one of the plastic chairs and took the lid off her mug. The aroma of fresh-brewed coffee suffused the room, instantly making it more homey, less sterile. Napoleon inhaled it covetously, but refrained from asking for a sip. Gaby could use the color that the coffee would put back in her pale cheeks. She looked a shadow of the little Fury who'd burst into the factory to rescue him.

 _Three days._ She must have sat with him through all of it.

"How did you even find me?" he asked quietly, once he'd drunk his fill.

Gaby set down the mug on the empty seat next to her and folded her hands. "We tracked down your clothes. They'd been dumped by the side of a road."

"O—kay?" He didn't see how that would have helped, seeing as he hadn't been _in_ them at the time.

"They smelled of cologne."

Napoleon gazed at her uncomprehendingly. "And therefore?"

"Illya said it was the same cologne you had on you the night before."

 _That_ was how they'd known? "Yes, but...probably half of Latin America wears Canoë."

Gaby sniffed. "Not in that quantity."

"True," Napoleon conceded.

"So we checked out all the bars within a certain radius of the drop site until we found the one you'd been in, and got a description of the man you'd left with. A tall, blond man."

Napoleon squirmed a little under her knowing stare.

"Marco was a pretty regular customer, so we also got his name, but it turned out to be false. So we were forced to stake out the bar."

Napoleon pictured Illya glowering in a corner of the gay bar, stalking up to every blond man who walked in and angrily inhaling their scent. He began to giggle, to protests from his aching ribs.

"Lucky for you," Gaby continued, "he came in the very same night. It took a couple hours to sweat your location out of him."

Napoleon thought of Peril angry. "Don't envy Marco that experience."

Gaby frowned, looking down at the floor. "Yeah, well. Marco _did_ consign you to a day and night of electric shocks," she reminded him.

"A fact I'm not likely to forget anytime soon," Napoleon acknowledged ruefully.

"Once Illya had the intel he hared off after you. He spared maybe ten seconds to call me with the location."

"And then the cavalry swooped in." Napoleon replayed the moment in his head when he'd heard the door break down and known that Peril's foot was behind it. The certainty of safety he'd felt in Illya's arms. He held those feelings close. From past experience, that was all that would stand between him and the nightmares. He looked at Gaby. "So, uh, where's Peril?"

"Illya?" Gaby snapped upright, like she'd just been shaken awake. "Oh, he's, er —"

She was cut short by the door swinging open to admit Napoleon's nemesis, in the form of a short, white-coated Indian doctor with greying hair done up in a severe bun at the back of her head and the god-awfullest bedside manner Napoleon had ever had the misfortune to experience. He plastered on a smile. "Doctor Kaur. Always a pleasure."

"Mr Solo. Would it be too much to ask for a single mission in which either you or your Russian partner did not return to pollute my medical ward?" she responded.

Napoleon privately lamented the fate that surrounded him with people completely impervious to his charm, even as the rest of the world fell at his feet.

"What can I say, Doctor. The prospect of your company is irresistible."

Dr. Kaur let out a very unladylike snort. "And how are we feeling?"

"Alarmingly numb in one area and sadly un-numb in others," Napoleon reported.

The doctor picked up his medical chart, flipping through the pages briskly. "Pain is good for you, Mr Solo. Builds character."

"Then why is Napoleon Junior under sedation? Unless, of course, you think I already have more than enough character in that department."

Dr. Kaur rolled her eyes. "Why am I not surprised _it_ has a name?"

"That's just one of many, Doctor."

"Public Health Enemy No. 1. That's what I'd call it," Dr. Kaur muttered, not quite _sotto voce_.

Napoleon considered it. "Take out the 'health' and you may be onto something, Doctor."

Dr. Kaur snapped on a latex glove. "All right, Solo, let's see it. Miss Teller, if you would avert your eyes."

Gaby did no such thing, of course, but came to Napoleon's bedside and took his left hand in both of her own. He didn't mind: if he'd had any dregs of shame left on account of nudity, his latest experience would have rid him of them entirely. Besides, her hands were coffee-warmed and comforting. Napoleon found himself fixating on their texture, a curious mixed terrain of soft skin and callused joints, which was just diverting enough to take his mind away from the moment when the sheet was ripped away from him.

He was poked and prodded, rolled over onto his side so Dr. Kaur could survey the damage to his back. His lungs were listened to, the stethoscope cold against his chest, before the sheet was returned. Gaby tucked it carefully back around him as the doctor scrawled notes on his chart. Napoleon opened his mouth to ask for a prognosis, but was preempted by a stern index finger.

Napoleon clamped his mouth shut, exchanging a worried glance with Gaby as the doctor headed over to the beeping machine and pressed a button. It printed out a squiggly line along a narrow strip of paper. Dr. Kaur surveyed it, her mouth pressed into a grim line.

Maybe something really was wrong. Napoleon was on the verge of beginning to sweat when Dr. Kaur snapped the chart shut. "You," she said, fixing Napoleon with a gimlet stare, "are an extraordinarily lucky man, Mr Solo."

"Lucky," he repeated. "Can't say I feel that way at the moment."

"In that case, let me help you count your blessings. When the medics reached you, you were suffering from a heart arrhythmia, which would have rapidly progressed to cardiac arrest, without treatment. As it was, it was thirty-six hours before we managed to stabilise your heart-rate..." She trailed off at Napoleon's politely expectant expression and sighed. "But there's only one blessing you care about, isn't there? Very well. What with the degree of electrical shocks you were subjected to, your penis could have suffered severe tissue damage, resulting in long-term erectile dysfunction at best and, at worst, amputation."

Napoleon gave a tiny squeak of horror.

"Fortunately for you," Dr. Kaur continued, "it received only a mild contact burn, which should continue to heal over the next few days." She sounded grudgingly impressed by his resilience.

Napoleon exhaled, relief flooding through his system. "I did my best to mount a stiff resistance, Doctor," he said modestly.

Gaby pretended to gag. Dr. Kaur gave him a stern look. "Give it a rest, Mr Solo."

"But how's Junior going to get better without exercise?"

Dr. Kaur sighed and waggled her finger at him. "Mr Solo, you are far and away the worst patient I have ever had."

"May I remind you, Doctor, of the existence of a certain U.N.C.L.E. agent named Illya Kuryakin?"

The doctor harrumphed, telegraphing her agreement, but Napoleon didn't miss the way Gaby's face blanched at Peril's name. And suddenly all the little tells of distress she'd been exhibiting at every mention of Illya came together in his mind.

"What's wrong?" he mouthed at her, eyes darting between Gaby and the doctor.

Gaby made a swift motion across her neck. _Not now._ But that didn't stop the heart-rate monitor from speeding up perceptibly in the corner. The doctor looked up.

"Something distressing you, Mr Solo?"

Gaby intervened. "Dr Kaur, would you give us a few minutes' privacy please?"

The doctor looked between them, her suspicious gaze searching for any signs of impropriety, but between Napoleon's poker face and Gaby's innocent one, she relented. "Very well. But I'll be back, Mr Solo. We have a lot more tests in store for you."

"Can't wait," Napoleon called, as the door swung shut behind her. "Gaby. What's happened to Illya?"

"There's...something you should know." Gaby took a deep breath. "Salazar's dead."

"Dead? How?" Napoleon had thought he'd got clean away with his maneuver at the factory.

"His mansion caught fire, six hours after your rescue. The whole place was gutted."

Napoleon's mouth went dry, remembering the legions of staff that house had had. Guards, cooks, footmen. The maid who'd smiled at him. "How many casualties?"

Gaby shook her head. "Interim report said, maybe fifteen?"

Napoleon ran a hand through his hair. "Jesus, what a mess."

"The really weird thing is —" Gaby hesitated — "when they found him, or what was left of him, he'd been, um. Let's just say he was in one place, and his dick was in another."

Revenge. It had to be. But he could think of only one person who would be motivated to avenge him. Though Illya wouldn't usually involve innocent people. And castration and arson really weren't his style. But who else was there, who knew what Salazar had done to Napoleon, and cared enough to do something about it?

"Were you still in the country?" he asked.

"Solo —"

"Were you still in the country," Napoleon repeated. He knew she knew what he was really asking.

She looked him in the eye. "Yes. Immediately after we got you to safety, while the medics were working on you...Illya was really agitated. He left. I should have monitored where he went, but I..."

"You were looking after me." Napoleon took her hand and squeezed it. It wasn't her fault. She had to know that.

She squeezed his hand back. "We were extracted separately. I haven't seen him since. I know he had a meeting with Waverly, and some disciplinary action was taken. I don't know what it was, though. I just know he's not in HQ." Her fingers were trembling slightly. He couldn't blame her. She must have sat here for three days in an endless cycle of doubt and dire imaginings and self-recrimination, with nobody to share the burden.

"What does Waverly think happened?"

Gaby shrugged helplessly. "I'm not supposed to know any of this. In case you couldn't guess, Solo, we're all kind of in the doghouse at the moment."

"You could have told him it was all my fault."

Gaby let out a bitter laugh. "Oh, sure, blame the unconscious guy. I'm sure that would have gone over well."

"Would've been justified," Napoleon said softly.

" _No._ We all went into this with our eyes wide open, Solo," Gaby said, her voice firm.

Napoleon looked away for a moment, overcome with gratitude. He got a hold of himself, returning to the problem at hand. "So how _did_ you find out?"

"I got it from Waverly's new secretary, Ransome. I overheard him while he was on the phone with the Mexican authorities. He was very insistent on getting every detail of Salazar's death. I don't see why Waverly would have bothered, if U.N.C.L.E. wasn't somehow involved."

They exchanged a look, and Napoleon knew both of them were recalling Illya's ominous pronouncement. _I know where he lives. A bullet was too good for him._

Napoleon tried to imagine it. Illya storming the house. Confronting Salazar. Pouring accelerant. Lighting the match.

No. He couldn't. Napoleon swung his legs over the side of the bed.

In a flash, Gaby was standing over him, hands on her hips. "And where do you think _you're_ going, Mister?"

He ripped the wire off his wrist and pressed it to hers. The heart-rate machine let out a brief squeal of alarm before resuming its steady rhythm. "Gaby, I need to talk to Illya. Which means I need to talk to Waverly."

"But Dr Kaur —" She glanced at the door.

"Dr. Kaur can wait."

"I don't see what —"

Napoleon took Gaby by the shoulders. "Illya didn't do it."

"I wish I could believe that, Solo, but who else _is_ there?"

"Salazar had other enemies. The buyer of the message. His former friends in the drug trade." Though as far as Napoleon knew, neither would have any interest in dismembering Salazar. "Or one of the women he was blackmailing," Napoleon added in a sudden flash of inspiration, recalling the contents of the safe. "If one of them was desperate enough and angry enough, she could have done it."

"It's awfully coincidental." Gaby wrinkled her nose. "Look, I hate to think it. I've hated myself for three days thinking it."

"I know, I went there, too, but —"

" _But_ , Illya is a KGB assassin."

"Was," Napoleon said automatically.

She gave him a look. The one that said: four days ago _you_ were the one telling me you were a finger-snap away from being returned to the CIA. And she was right. But Illya was so much more than that.

"Gaby, think about Illya. _Our_ Illya. The guy who lets himself get dragged into a waltz just because a woman half his size says so. The guy who joins in on unauthorized operations even though all his training forbids it. The guy who sits and sews trackers into our clothes to keep us safe." The guy who'd extricated Napoleon from the electrodes with the gentlest of touches despite his trembling fingers.

"You were unconscious. You didn't see how angry he was when you _nearly died_ ," Gaby objected, but her spirits were lifting already, Napoleon could see it.

"Ever since we've been partnered, has he killed even one innocent person, let alone fourteen?" Napoleon countered. "I refuse to believe it."

Gaby nodded slowly. The beeping in the corner slowed. "You're right. He deserves our trust." She exhaled. "Are you going to talk to Waverly?"

"Yeah."

"Want me to run interference while you slip out the door?"

"No, I think Dr. Kaur has enough experience with Peril and me to have mounted a guard on the exit. Just stay here and keep that infernal machine happy. Oh, and, you wouldn't happen to have a screwdriver on you, by any chance?"

Gaby rolled her eyes at him. She turned her back on him for a second and when she turned again, there was a screwdriver in her hand, held out to him point first.

Napoleon chuckled admiringly. "You can take the girl out of the chop shop..." He trailed off, suddenly registering that something that long shouldn't have fit anywhere within that chic little Paco Rabanne number she was wearing. He squinted at the screwdriver. "Should I be worried about where that's been?"

"Take it or leave it, Solo." The screwdriver waggled at him with a vague air of menace.

Napoleon took hold of it, slightly gingerly, but it seemed free from any suspicious substances. He knelt down by the air vent and efficiently removed the screws holding the metal grille in place.

"You do know these ventilation shafts are booby-trapped and blocked off with bars at strategic intersections," Gaby said.

"Of course. As a professional thief I feel it incumbent upon me to inspect said security measures at regular intervals."

"And doubtless disable certain of the traps at even more strategic intersections."

Napoleon shrugged.

"I ought to report you."

"I give you my blessing. So long as you cover for me, for the next ten minutes."

"I can do that." She bent down and kissed him. "That one's for you. And that one's for Illya, when you find him."

Right, he still owed her that confession. "I hope you realize I'm putting my life on the line here."

"He's worth it."

"I know." He flattened himself down to wriggle through the vent.

"Just...one more thing."

Napoleon looked behind him inquiringly.

"You may wish to acquire a new set of clothes, Solo. You'll be a bit conspicuous scarpering around HQ with your arse hanging out of your hospital gown." Gaby nodded mischievously towards Napoleon's ass, which, now that he was aware of it, _was_ feeling rather breezy.

Napoleon opened his mouth to chastise her for her unseemly mirth, but decided to let it go. It was worth it, to see the smile back on her face.


	4. Chapter 4

U.N.C.L.E. HQ had once been a secret World War II government bunker, sunk deep into the London clay. It snaked away in zigs and zags from its main entry point under, of all things, a dry-cleaner's shop, performing complex architectural gymnastics to dodge the Tube, the underground rivers, and every other occupant of the city's busy subsoil. When Mr. Waverly had sweet-talked the powers-that-be into commandeering this valuable real estate for his fledgling international spy agency, U.N.C.L.E. had quite sensibly isolated the medical wing in a separate branch of the bunker, far from the agents' offices. Napoleon had once rejoiced in the distance; now it was just a literal pain in the ass as he crawled through endless dark ducts and contorted himself around countless sharp bends.

He was beyond filthy when he finally slithered through the vent into the office he nominally shared with Gaby and Illya — not that they were ever actually _in_ it. He sank into his seat with a sigh, not even caring what the grimy hospital gown was doing to the leather, and pulled open the bottom drawer. Thankfully, the amenity kit he'd purloined during his last stay at the Savoy was still there, and a brief plundering of Illya's adjacent desk yielded a small Soviet-issue face towel. Coarser than he was used to, but it would get the job done.

He dragged himself over to the regulation washbasin, ripping the gown off over his head as he went, suddenly grateful to the anonymous government functionary who'd insisted that his lords and masters be able to perform their ablutions even as the Luftwaffe rained death on the city above. Napoleon turned on the tap, waited for the water to run clear, then began the arduous task of making himself look human again.

He checked his progress occasionally in the full-length mirror hanging on the back of the door. This was a bit less regulation, the unexpected fruit of a jaunt to Portobello Road soon after they'd moved into HQ, back when they'd had the occasional Sunday free. Napoleon smiled at the memory. Of Illya's incredulous face when he realized Napoleon was actually serious about acquiring the thing. Of how he'd forced Napoleon to actually render payment for it ( _"How delightfully capitalist of you, Peril."_ — _"Shut up, Cowboy."_ ). How the mirror had turned out to be too big to safely transport on the Tube, forcing them to carry it back the whole way, Illya complaining of _bourgeois decadence_ and openly wondering why the hell he was catering to Napoleon's vanity. But look how useful it was coming in now, as Napoleon hastily slapped pomade on unruly hair and razed away four days of stubble.

He turned next to the task of armoring himself for the battles to come. Past Napoleon had presciently left a spare suit and a change of socks and shoes for just such a contingency, and naturally his drawer furnished several tasteful matching choices of tie, each with a lockpick strategically tucked into the seam. Sadly, he'd never gotten around to restocking his emergency underwear stash after that little tryst with Jill from the Africa desk — and boy, did that feel like a lifetime ago. If there was ever a day when he would have appreciated the extra protection, it was today, but there was nothing for it.

He zipped up gingerly and cast a critical eye at his reflection. His face was largely uninjured, thanks to Illya's timely arrival, but his mirror twin still looked exhausted, his features lined with pain. He gulped down a couple of aspirin to take care of the latter. He'd just have to put a bright face on the first.

He tugged his cuffs down, hiding the purpling gashes that encircled his wrists, tucked an errant lock of hair back into place, and exhaled. Okay. He could work with this.

Napoleon paused for a moment at the door, listening for marauding hordes emanating from the medical wing, then squared his shoulders and stepped confidently out of the office. He passed a few fellow U.N.C.L.E. agents in the corridors, some of whom he didn't even recognize — since their inaugural team, Waverly had been poaching agents at an astonishing clip — but they simply nodded at him, pleasantly oblivious that his presence in these halls was unsanctioned.

Unfortunately, Waverly's secretary was a good deal less oblivious. Ransome leapt to his feet the moment Napoleon entered the antechamber to Waverly's office, phone receiver in hand.

"He's here. Just walked in," he reported. "Yes, of course. I'll hold him till you arrive," which was something of a grandiose claim, in Napoleon's opinion. Ransome put down the phone, revealing a quite unfortunate goatee he'd acquired since the last and only time Napoleon had met him. It looked like a small rodent had crawled onto his chin and promptly expired.

"I'll hazard a guess. Medical unit?" Napoleon said pleasantly.

"Which is where you're supposed to be, Solo," the younger man said, with full conviction of the authority of his position.

"I'm here to see Waverly."

"Absolutely not. The director's busy, and moreover, Dr Kaur is after your blood. Quite literally. She's sending a medical team up here to fetch you with a gurney. The one with straps on."

"Yes, well, they're not here yet, so until then I'll just —" Napoleon stepped towards the door of the hallowed sanctum that was Waverly's office. It would be locked, he knew, but that hardly posed a major obstacle. Ransome seemed to sense the danger, and moved to bodily check Napoleon's advance.

Which made it all the easier for Napoleon to slip two fingers into Ransome's inner pocket and lift the key.

Napoleon let himself be shoved away from the door and raised a pair of empty palms in wide-eyed surrender. "Okay, fine, I get the picture. No audience with Waverly." He briefly considered starting a wild goose chase by walking out, decided that the vein on Ransome's forehead was already bulging rather alarmingly — didn't want to give the poor guy a premature stroke — and settled for the most comfortable seat in the waiting area, hooking one leg over the other elegantly. "I'll just wait here for the good doctor to arrive, shall I?"

Quite appropriately, Ransome smelled a rat, his gaze darting uncertainly between him, Waverly's office, and the corridor. Napoleon decided that a spot of soothing conversation wouldn't go amiss.

"Practicing the art of disguise?"

Ransome paused in his pacing in front of the doorway. "Huh?"

Napoleon gestured towards the growth on the man's chin.

"What? No, it's real!"

Napoleon gave him a sympathetic grimace. "That's unfortunate."

"What d'you mean, unfortunate?" the secretary demanded petulantly.

"Your chin isn't quite built for a goatee. I'd reconsider it if I were you."

Ransome's pale complexion darkened. "Nobody asked you for your advice, Solo."

"Common, but fatal, mistake." Napoleon shook his head sorrowfully. "Perhaps reshape it? I know a truly excellent barber in Covent Garden, performs feats of magic with facial hair."

Ransome scowled still further.

"You could always ask Dr. Kaur for a second opinion when she gets here. I'm sure she has plenty to say on the subject of beards and hygiene. Say, that's not her now, is it?"

It was far from his finest con, but it did at least get Ransome to exit the room for a second. Napoleon crossed swiftly over to Waverly's door and slid the key in the lock.

"You're safe for now, Solo, she's not here yet — hey, what're you — stop!"

Ransome closed the distance in two strides, grabbed Napoleon's right wrist, and _twisted_. Napoleon suppressed a grimace at the pressure against the abrasions. Well, at least that absolved any guilt he might feel over what he was about to do next.

He spun on his heel and rammed his shoulder into Ransome's chest, driving him into the door. It juddered under the impact, and Ransome let out a grunt of pain, before grabbing two fistfuls of Napoleon's suit and performing a complicated throw that ended with Napoleon sprawled on the floor, Ransome's full weight pinning him down. Napoleon gasped for air, his mind belatedly dredging up canteen gossip about Ransome being excellent at jujitsu. Then again, he didn't have the advantage of six months' grappling practice with a Russian martial arts champion.

Napoleon hooked his knee around Ransome's leg, one hand simultaneously fastening on the other man's ankle. He threw himself sideways, rolling them around so that their positions were reversed. He had the brief satisfaction of a flash of annoyed surprise before the door swung open, narrowly missing their interlocked bodies. Napoleon followed the pinstriped trouser legs up to a pair of blue eyes hemmed in by horn-rimmed glasses, gazing down at them with an air of vague concern.

"Mr Solo, Mr Ransome," Waverly greeted them cordially, as if they weren't currently tangled in an undignified heap at his feet. "Perhaps, in future, you might consider more conventional means of knocking?"

"I'm terribly sorry, sir, I tried to stop him like the doctor said, he's not supposed to be out of bed yet, they're sending a gurney —" Ransome babbled as Napoleon released him from his grip.

"That's quite all right, Ransome. I think Mr Solo has proven himself sturdy enough to weather a conversation with me. When the medical team get here, send them back, with my apologies." Waverly turned to Napoleon and made a courteous gesture towards the interior of his office. "If you'd be so kind as to return the key you took from Ransome's pocket, Solo. Then take a seat? Figuratively, I mean, not literally."

Napoleon tossed the key at the dumbfounded secretary and stalked past Waverly, straightening his tie as he went. He planted himself in the chair, and waited impatiently for his boss to shut the door and take his place on the other side of the desk.

"Mr Solo." Waverly offered him a diffident smile. "I am glad to see you up and about after your unfortunate experience. What may I do for you?"

"Il— Kuryakin. He's innocent," Napoleon blurted out.

Waverly raised an eyebrow. "What of?"

"Salazar's murder. The fire. The deaths of Salazar's staff. He didn't do it."

"I quite agree. There is no evidence Mr Kuryakin had anything to do with it."

"Look, I know it looks bad, but — wait, what?" Had Waverly said _no_ evidence? It wasn't quite the same as _innocence_ , but it did take the righteous indignation out of Napoleon's sails somewhat. "So he's not being punished for it?"

Waverly's brow furrowed. "Why would I punish Kuryakin for something like that, without proof?"

"So...who did do it?" Napoleon floundered.

"Your guess is as good as mine, Mr Solo. But I'm sure the Mexican authorities have it well in hand. And we will, of course, render them every assistance in their investigation."

In other words, Illya wasn't entirely off the hook. Not until they found someone else with a possibly homicidal urge to castrate Francisco Salazar, anyway.

Napoleon took a deep breath, collecting his wits. If Illya wasn't here, and Illya wasn't in custody, then... "Kuryakin's address. I want it."

Waverly tapped his pen a couple of times against the folder in front of him, clearly deliberating. Napoleon tried to peek at the file, but the cover was unmarked.

"Just for the sake of supposition, Solo, were Mr Kuryakin to come to me and demand your address — against all U.N.C.L.E. policy, I might add — what would you do if I did give it to him?"

Napoleon shrugged. "Invite him round to dinner?"

That was clearly not the answer Waverly had been expecting.

"And if I were to give you his?"

"I'd ask him why the hell he deserted me and Gaby for three days," Napoleon muttered.

"Ah." Waverly smiled. "I begin to see the problem. You are labouring under a misapprehension, Mr Solo: Kuryakin has not been avoiding you of his own free will. He's been recalled by the KGB..."

Napoleon slammed his hands against the desk. "He's been _what_?"

Waverly held up a finger. "...for re-training. Just for a few days, they said. Since your team were obviously not going anywhere for some time, I had to acquiesce."

"Re-training," Napoleon repeated flatly. "Moscow?"

"No, not Moscow." Waverly gestured for him to reclaim his seat. "Perhaps, Solo, I never made the terms of our agreement with your parent agencies adequately clear. Your handlers receive copies of all mission reports..."

" _All_ of them?" Napoleon recalled, with a twinge of guilt, once drunkenly tossing off a mission report that simply read, _We came, we saw, we conquered_.

"Yes, Solo, all of them, without redaction — or embellishment, as the case may be. Your handlers are also entitled to knowledge of your whereabouts, and may contact you so long as such contact does not break cover or otherwise interfere with a mission. What they are _not_ allowed to do, is to remove you from whichever city you are stationed in, without permission."

"With all due respect, sir, I don't think the KGB gives two hoots about your agreement."

"U.N.C.L.E. is an international organisation, Solo, and we operate on a solid legal basis. Powerful as the KGB are, even they would experience repercussions for breaching our contract."

Napoleon shook his head. That seemed hopelessly naïve, and yet...

"So you see, Solo, even if I were to give you his address, it is unlikely that it would aid you in your quest for Kuryakin."

"And you have no idea where he is."

"Not at present, no."

 _Bullshit_ , Napoleon almost said aloud. Waverly could pull up the location of just about anyone in London if he put his mind to it.

No matter. Waverly had his methods, but if he chose not to use them, Napoleon had his own. He gave Waverly a curt nod and rose to leave. Which was when he noticed the painting. Which really should have jumped out at him from the very beginning, what with him being a famous art thief and all.

"I did think that would look good on your wall," he said, as mildly as he could manage.

Waverly followed his gaze to the _Portrait of Jacob de Gheyn III_. "Then I thank you for considering my interior decorating needs, Solo. Sadly, this is merely a temporary arrangement, for the safety of the painting."

"Temporary?" The word was disorienting. Was Waverly actually hinting at _returning_ it to Napoleon?

"You see the director of the Dulwich Picture Gallery is a dear friend."

"Ah," Napoleon said. _Fuck_ , he added privately.

Waverly leaned back in his chair, his expression thoughtful. "Perhaps the Russians have the right idea, in recalling Kuryakin for re-training. It seems that your observational skills have taken a turn for the worse over the past few months, Solo."

Napoleon wasn't quite sure how he'd missed it himself. "I...had one or two other things on my mind," he admitted.

Waverly stared at him. "Quite."

Which reminded Napoleon that there were one or two other things he should say to Waverly. He squared his shoulders, standing almost at parade rest. "Sir, I want you to know that I take full responsibility for the failure of the mission."

Waverly's face flickered in a complex expression of surprise and something else Napoleon couldn't identify. "I'm glad to hear it, Solo," he said gravely. "But it's not so much the mission I mind, as the reckless endangerment of my agents' lives afterward. Against my express orders, no less."

Napoleon winced. "Yes, sir, I understand. And I take full responsibility for that too."

Waverly raised an eyebrow. "So you claim your little escapade was your idea entirely."

The man ought to have been a poker player. The wrinkles on his weathered face should have been a multitude of tells, but Napoleon was having a hard time making them add up to anything coherent. "Yes...?" he ventured, cautiously.

Waverly gave an amused little huff. "That's odd, Mr Solo, because I had each of your colleagues in here three days ago swearing up and down that it was a collective decision."

Napoleon's heart skipped. "Illya too?"

Waverly nodded. "Kuryakin even insisted that it was his plan and his negligence alone that put you in danger."

He let Napoleon stew on that for a while, steepling his fingers and tapping them against his lips, his expression returning to its usual level of inscrutability. After an excruciating fifteen seconds, he seemed to reach a decision. He picked up the folder in front of him, turned it 180 degrees, and pushed it towards Napoleon. "You once met Kuryakin's KGB handler, did you not?"

Napoleon flipped it open and found himself staring down at the face of the man who'd impassively instructed Kuryakin to let him live in the public toilets in West Berlin. "Oleg? Yes, I did."

"He's on the Deutsche Lufthansa flight from Berlin, arriving at London Airport at three p.m.," Waverly said. Napoleon glanced at his watch. Just over an hour. "I trust I needn't spell out the rest."

"No, sir. Thank you, sir," Napoleon said gratefully.

Waverly gave him a weary smile. "Just remember this, Solo. I've spent three years building up U.N.C.L.E. to its present form. Please, don't ruin it all in a single day."

"Don't you worry, sir — diplomacy is my strong suit," Napoleon said. And to prove it, he didn't even take offense when Waverly didn't look the slightest bit reassured.

* * *

Napoleon stepped out of the spacious black cab just as a jet thundered off the runway, its blue-and-white Pan Am livery gleaming against the grey sky. His heart thrilled to the sight of the airplane soaring into the air, as it always did. Years of jet-setting, first as an international art thief and then as a spy, had never quite eradicated the wide-eyed wonder of the five-year-old who'd first looked up past towering cornstalks to spot a crop-duster puttering its way across the sky, doggedly freeing itself from the shackles of Earth.

The cabbie cleared his throat meaningfully.

"Oh. Excuse me," Napoleon said, and shut the door. The taxi swung out of the rank of idling cars, and Napoleon glanced down them, hoping to spot a six-foot-five blond Russian. He was pretty sure someone as high-ranking in the KGB as Oleg wasn't going to trust his security to public transportation, or even to a minion of the Soviet Embassy. No, he'd be met by one of his agents, and since Illya was directly under Oleg's command and, moreover, actually registered with the British authorities as a declared Soviet agent, he was the obvious choice for chauffeur of the day.

But there was no one at the curb who answered to Illya's description, so Napoleon headed into the bustling terminal, where a lilting English voice was announcing the arrival of Lufthansa Flight 246 from Berlin, and through to the viewing platform, where he could watch the turboprop disgorging its passengers onto the tarmac. Oleg was easy to pick out as he made his way down the aircraft steps, showing his clear disdain for the mildness of the English winter by leaving his coat draped over an arm. His only luggage was a slim briefcase.

Napoleon lingered long enough to verify that no one was going to magick Oleg away before immigration and customs, then made himself at home in the arrivals hall, surveilling his environs from behind a copy of the Times.

He cast an eye over the paper while he waited. Kennedy's assassination was no longer front-page news, at least here in Britain, but it still reverberated in every article even vaguely related to international relations. Tributes were being paid, libraries being built, disavowals of his foreign policy gentled over with disclaimers that they were not _in any way_ criticisms of the late president.

A short column briefly reported the first meeting of the special commission of inquiry now-President Johnson had appointed to investigate Dallas. They'd asked for powers of subpoena, which they'd undoubtedly receive. The whole exercise was designed to show that the U.S. Government was united in its pursuit of truth and justice, after all.

Another announcement came over the P.A. system, inviting passengers to board a Trans World flight, destination New York. It jolted a rare pang of homesickness in Napoleon. He felt oddly adrift, disconnected, after four days away from his usual sources of scuttlebutt. How were people back home getting on, two weeks after? What were they saying now? Did the air of unreality still linger, like the traces of a bad dream?

He could still remember the looks on Gaby and Illya's faces, when they'd entered his room in Hong Kong with the news. _Death in the family,_ had been his immediate thought, except that Napoleon had very thoroughly dissociated his family from his own identity and there was no way they would have received word before him. And then Gaby had walked up and wrapped her arms around him, whispering the words into his chest. Illya had rested a heavy hand on his shoulder, the gesture more eloquent than any words of sympathy could have been, anchoring him when he'd felt like the ground had been ripped from under his feet.

Napoleon tore his thoughts back into the present. He turned the page resolutely and set himself to studying every word of an article on the birth of a new volcanic island in Iceland.

The minutes ticked away.

His eyes were glazing over the hockey scores when the hairs on the back of his neck prickled to attention. He fought the reflex to drop the newspaper and look behind him. If someone was watching, and it was Illya, betraying a poor grasp of tradecraft would hardly win Napoleon any brownie points. And if it wasn't Illya — plausible, London Airport was a hive of spies — letting them know they'd been made wasn't the greatest idea either.

The door from Customs swung open and passengers began to trickle out, which gave Napoleon the perfect excuse to tuck his paper under an arm and casually survey the hall. No sign of Illya. Flight 246 had arrived exactly on time, with typical Teutonic punctuality. Illya was now officially late, and Illya didn't _do_ late, any more than the Germans did. That went double for a meeting with his handler. He _had_ to be skulking about here someplace.

"Dammit, Illya, stop playing games," Napoleon muttered under his breath, but he went on the prowl anyway. There. A tall shadow, lurking behind a pillar. He crept closer.

Only to discover that the shadow belonged to a man who was Illya's exact opposite in every way save height: burly where Illya was slender; a bald patch emerging from a head of dark hair, as opposed to Illya's full, angelic thatch. And he seemed completely oblivious to Napoleon's presence, even when he got near enough to sink a knife between the man's ribs. Illya would never have allowed that.

The man straightened his back suddenly. Napoleon followed his gaze to see Oleg emerge from Customs. The man went up to Oleg, taking his briefcase with an obsequious lowering of his head that should have been incompatible with Communist ideals, and gestured towards the waiting cars.

Napoleon shadowed them, racking his brains for what to do next. Waverly had sent him here in pursuit of Illya, presumably expecting him to be the one to greet his handler as KGB protocols dictated, yet Oleg didn't seem disturbed by his absence.

He could just hail a cab and follow them. But it would be all too easy to lose them in the snarl of London traffic. And then it would be just them and Illya and the specter of _re-training_ , whatever the hell that was code for.

Oleg was getting into a car, the giant standing at the door ready to close it after him. Napoleon had seconds to decide.

He took the plunge. "Colonel! Fancy meeting you here. Welcome to London."

The two Russians' heads whipped around. The giant's hand slipped automatically under the lapel of his suit, going for a shoulder holster. Oleg stopped him with a brief gesture. "Mr. Solo. This is a coincidence indeed."

"I think we both know otherwise."

Oleg's beetling eyebrows shot up. "You are more straightforward than the reports suggest, Mr. Solo."

"What, _we came, we saw, we conquered_ not direct enough for you?"

"What business do you want with me?" Oleg cut to the chase.

So did Napoleon. "I want to see Kuryakin."

Oleg's gaze narrowed on him. Napoleon met his eyes, keeping his face studiously blank, and let Oleg read whatever he was looking for in his expression.

He seemed to find it. "Naturally. Come. I will take you to him." He climbed into the back seat, clearly expecting Napoleon to follow.

The last time Napoleon had gotten into a black car with tinted windows, things hadn't ended very well for him. He told himself the difference was that this time, he was going _towards_ Illya, not away. Oleg might even let him keep his clothes on.

Into the Russian den he went, just managing to tuck his leg in before the giant slammed the door shut on it. Charmer.

The man lumbered around to the front of the car. The entire vehicle dipped in his direction as he folded into the passenger seat. They drove off in silence. Oleg accepted a large manila envelope from the same man and hunkered down with its contents, ignoring Napoleon's presence entirely. For once, Napoleon had no objection to the quiet. The last thing he wanted was any sort of conversation with Oleg, especially regarding his intentions towards Illya.

Instead he glanced down at the envelope Oleg had left on the seat between them, address side up, which was as good as an invitation to peek. The addresses were in handwritten cursive Cyrillic, which formed a whole layer of encryption unto itself, but Napoleon could just make out that the envelope had originated in the Soviet consulate in Mexico City. Huh. Something to do with Illya's case, perhaps? Either that, or Mexico City had turned into a hotbed of intrigue of late.

"Tovarisch," came a warning growl from the front seat, and Napoleon glanced up to see the giant glowering at him in the rear-view mirror. Whoops. Busted.

"Is all right, Boris," Oleg dismissed the man. To Napoleon, he continued, "You must excuse him. Boris is not fond of Americans."

Napoleon waved his apology away. "I'm used to it."

"Oh? You and Kuryakin do not get along, then?" Oleg's tone was deceptively mild.

Damn. He'd stepped right into that. The question was like a knife-edge. Any hint that their relationship was any degree above frosty, and the KGB might assume Illya was compromised by long-term association with an American; any hint of interpersonal conflict could be grounds for an official complaint that could get their team disbanded.

"We get along about as well as you'd expect from any CIA agent and KGB officer," Napoleon hedged.

Oleg scoffed. "Come, come, Solo. We are intelligence agents, not diplomats. You can tell me the truth."

 _Truth is, I'm in love with Illya Kuryakin and would like nothing better than to jump his bones the moment my equipment's up for it._ Yeah, that would go over like a ton of bricks. Napoleon reminded himself that Oleg was a skilled interrogator, according to his CIA file, the kind that didn't need electric shocks and pliers to get a man to talk. He wasn't going to fall for Napoleon's charms so Napoleon wasn't even going to try. The easiest way to get Oleg off his back was to give him something. And, on balance, Oleg probably wasn't the kind of handler for whom interpersonal conflicts were a top priority.

"I'm sure you've read the reports," Napoleon said, allowing an edge to enter his voice. "You've seen the number of times Kuryakin has blown up at me and wound up trashing a hotel room as a result."

"Indeed," Oleg said. "But it is the circumstances of those, what did you call them, blow-ups, that interest me."

He gave Napoleon a thin-lipped, ominous smile. Napoleon resisted the urge to sit on his hands to keep from fidgeting. He kept them loose on his lap and waited for Oleg to elaborate.

"Would you consider yourself a pacifist, Agent Solo?"

Napoleon blinked at the non sequitur. "Ex _cuse_ me?"

"Kuryakin seems to think so."

"That's a pretty surprising conclusion, given that I very nearly killed him the first time we met. _Twice._ "

"Ah, but that was before you saw his face."

Napoleon's mouth went dry. Surely they hadn't figured it out. Surely _Illya_ wouldn't have told them...

"You are able to kill under limited circumstances," Oleg continued, "namely, when you do not have to look your victim in the eye. An example is how you killed Victoria Vinciguerra. You merely had to keep her talking. You did not have to watch as she disintegrated from the impact of the missile."

"I wasn't the one who fired it," Napoleon said defensively.

"Yes, that is probably how you justify it to yourself so that you can sleep at night. Kuryakin, on the other hand, has no qualms killing someone in cold blood."

 _And ripping their dicks off,_ Napoleon thought involuntarily. No. That wasn't Illya. He was sure of it.

"This weakness of yours seems to irritate Kuryakin greatly. I believe you argued about it, several times."

Napoleon could almost hear Illya's last rant ringing in his ears still. _"When the other person is pointing a gun at your forehead, you_ shoot _! You do not offer them the rest of your Bombay duck!"_

 _"It could have worked,"_ Napoleon had argued back. _"It was excellent duck."_

At which point an unfortunate desk lamp had found itself defenestrated via the nearest window. Things had gone steadily downhill from there.

"Yes, well. We can't all have the killer instinct beaten into us in KGB training academies."

"Ah, but there you are mistaken. Kuryakin's talent predates his association with the KGB. He first came to our attention by killing one of our majors. In cold blood. He was thirteen years old at the time."

Jesus Christ, _thirteen?_ There had been no mention of this in Illya's file. At least, not the dossier the CIA had compiled on him.

Napoleon shook his head. "There's no way the KGB would have spared him for killing one of their own."

"When you capture a wild animal, you can put it down, or you can tame it, turn it into a tool." Oleg shrugged. "We chose to tame him."

Napoleon snapped. "Well, if you've read the reports, your _tool_ was responsible for my getting zapped with electric shocks for an entire day."

Oleg's gaze dropped, humiliatingly, to Napoleon's groin. "Yes, I am aware. It will be dealt with, I assure you." He sounded supremely pleased with himself. He nodded at Napoleon's rolled-up newspaper. "May I borrow that?"

Napoleon practically shoved it into his hands, glad for a respite from the verbal altercation.

While Oleg perused the paper, Napoleon watched the scenery roll by. They were back in the City now, traveling east along the Embankment. The setting sun had fallen below the clouds, casting rays of dusky orange across the glittering waters of the Thames.

Napoleon gazed at the distant vista of Tower Bridge, mentally reviewing the conversation. He couldn't help but feel that he'd given away something important with his little outburst. Oleg looked a bit too much like the cat that ate the canary. But at least he'd managed to ward Oleg away from the idea that he and Illya might, god forbid, actually _care_ for each other. Napoleon decided to count that as a win.

He relaxed minutely.

"I see that this commission to look into your president's death has started to meet," Oleg said, and Napoleon was nearly overcome by the urge to put his face in his hands and groan. After his amorous feelings for one of their agents, Napoleon couldn't think of anything he wanted to discuss _less_ with an officer of the KGB. "My sincerest condolences, by the way," Oleg continued, in a voice that sounded anything but sincere.

"I can't imagine the KGB was too upset by his assassination," Napoleon said shortly.

"On the contrary. Kennedy was one of the few in your government who was actively working towards peace with my country. I am told that Comrade Khrushchev himself shed tears at the news." Oleg paused. "Perhaps even more tears than some within your own country, would you say?"

Napoleon gave him a sharp glance. "What do you mean?"

"The CIA is a large organization. It is inevitable that factions form. Some sympathetic to your president's goals, some...less sympathetic. After all, the CIA is not filled solely with pacifist thieves such as yourself."

"No more than the KGB is filled with the sons of disgraced Party cadres," Napoleon shot back.

But part of him had to acknowledge the truth behind Oleg's words. The CIA _was_ splintered. One of the many fault-lines was Napoleon's employment with the Agency, with opinions pretty evenly split between those who saw him as an asset, and those who resented that he'd turned out to be a first-rate one. And then there were always the hardliners who wouldn't have blinked an eye at turning the Cold War into a hot one, and those, like Sanders, who saw the practical necessity of everyone just getting along.

Oleg chose to let his comment slide. "In your professional opinion, Agent Solo, what is it that this commission intends to conclude?"

Napoleon looked at him blankly. "They're only at the beginning of their investigations. How can they intend to conclude anything at this stage?"

Oleg gave him a pitying look. "Surely you are not so naïve as that, Solo. The goal of such a commission is to deliver the verdict that is maximally politically advantageous to its sponsors. No more, no less."

"In Soviet Russia, perhaps. This is America we're talking about." A thought occurred to Napoleon. "You're worried that they're going to point the finger at the KGB."

"It is a possibility we must contemplate." Meaning, it was something the KGB would have done.

"Did you do it?" Napoleon asked, straight out, because at this point, fuck diplomacy.

"Of course, no."

"Then you have nothing to be afraid of. Though you're probably really regretting having accepted Lee Oswald as a defector in the past. Bad optics, having the president's assassin turn out to have spent time in Soviet Russia."

Oleg seemed unperturbed. "I would be more worried if I were the government employee who gave him clearance to re-enter the United States. Besides, this Oswald traveled to many places, not just the Soviet Union. Did you know he recently spent some time in Mexico City, where you just were?"

Oleg slid over a set of black-and-white surveillance photographs. So that was what had been in the envelope. Nothing to do with Illya at all. Napoleon picked them up.

"These are pictures of a man purporting to be Lee Oswald, who presented himself at the Cuban and Soviet consulates asking for a visa."

Napoleon looked at the grainy images, which showed a thickset white man with a receding hairline and a bald spot on the crown of his head. He frowned. The photos didn't resemble the man in the mugshots that had been splashed across the papers in the wake of Oswald's arrest and subsequent murder.

Oleg noticed his expression. "A curious business, is it not?"

Very curious. And yet another reason to rue not going to Marvin Johnson that fateful night in Mexico City, besides the fact that Napoleon would then never have crossed paths with the treacherous Marco: it would have been a golden opportunity to hear such juicy intel straight from the horse's mouth. There wasn't much going on in Mexico City that the CIA man didn't know about.

Napoleon handed the photographs back and feigned casual disinterest. "This is all very interesting, Colonel, but I really don't know why you're telling me this."

"You may be on loan, Solo, but you remain a CIA agent. A good spy should be aware of what his agency is up to, no?"

Napoleon raised his eyebrows. "You're claiming that this impostor was a CIA plant."

"I am."

"If that's the case, what would the goal of this exercise be? To incriminate the KGB as instigators of Oswald's actions?"

Oleg spread his hands expansively. "If you want the current state of affairs to persist, you convict the man who has already been silenced, say he worked alone. But if you want war, you blame the KGB."

So Oleg was trying to convince him that someone in the CIA was cynically trying to mis-use Kennedy's death just to advance their own political agenda. And not just any agenda, to start a war. One in which Napoleon would be on one side and Illya on the other.

Sadly, Napoleon could see it happening. In fact, the idea was distressingly plausible. Still, it required evidence, and this wasn't it.

"All you've shown me is photographs of a man who is not Lee Oswald," Napoleon pointed out. "How am I supposed to conclude anything from that? Maybe if there were CIA markings on the photos, that would lend a tiny bit of credence to your story, but as it is..."

"Yes, unfortunately we did not manage to obtain copies of the CIA's own surveillance." Oleg sounded mildly chagrined.

"Sounds like what the KGB needs is more thieves and fewer assassins," Napoleon suggested, slightly facetiously.

Oleg opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again. He settled back in his seat, his face taking on a thoughtful cast.

The car pulled to a stop by a warehouse. "We have arrived," Boris informed them. He opened his own door, admitting a blast of briny estuary air, then clumped around to hold the door open for Oleg, leaving Napoleon to fend for himself.

Napoleon stepped out of the car into the last light of day. They were right by the water, on the docks, which were currently empty of everything save a small tugboat, bobbing gently in the wake of a ship upriver.

Two men were lounging against the bollards, clad in dark blue woolen caps and pullovers, though something told Napoleon they weren't the out-of-work longshoremen they appeared to be. Such as the fact that they were loitering outside what appeared to be a secret KGB facility without repercussion, openly sizing up the new arrivals.

He could still run. This was probably the last chance he was going to get. Napoleon checked off all the danger signs he'd been ignoring for the past hour and a half. He had zero back-up. He was at the complete mercy at the KGB. They hadn't even bothered to blindfold him on the way here. Even off his native turf, Oleg would hardly have any compunctions about killing a CIA spy.

"This way, Solo," Oleg said, gesturing toward the interior of the warehouse. The other four men gathered around, not-so-subtly forming four points of a diamond with Napoleon at the center. Still, Napoleon was pretty confident he could overpower the nameless chauffeur, and he could certainly outrun Boris and the other two. It wouldn't be pretty, and bullets might fly, and who knew if the KGB had other guards stationed around the warehouse, blocking the three obvious escape routes, four if you counted the water.

But Illya was in there, always assuming this wasn't a trap, and Napoleon had come too far to give up on him now.

"In for a penny," Napoleon muttered to himself, and followed Oleg into the warehouse, Boris and the driver close on his heels.

The interior of the warehouse was pitch-black, and they stood in the half-light of the entryway for a few seconds while someone fumbled for the switch. Row after row of fluorescent lights flickered to life. Napoleon blinked to adjust his eyes to the artificial illumination and looked around.

The warehouse was...a warehouse. There was a walled-off area that might be an office to the left of the entrance, but the rest was simply crates upon crates upon crates, without a single person in sight.

"Where's Kuryakin?" Napoleon asked.

Oleg gave Boris a curt nod. Boris nodded back and lurched over to a sheathed wooden crate, a cube roughly five feet in each dimension, and rapped loudly on the side. A weak clank of chains sounded in response.

_Illya._

A knot of rage swelled in Napoleon's stomach. Illya was in there. They had taken a living, breathing human being — had taken _Illya_ — and _caged_ him in that thing.

 _We're all in the doghouse,_ Gaby had told him, but Illya was in the KGB doghouse, and that was infinitely worse.

Boris picked up a crowbar off a shelf and applied it to the crate, while Oleg looked on. It took everything he had for Napoleon to keep his hands balled in fists by his side and not slug the self-satisfied smirk off the man's face and yell, "You're _torturing_ him, you bastards!"

Except that Oleg would probably coolly tell him that was the whole point of the exercise.

And the worst of it was, Napoleon had done the same.

Never mind that he hadn't gone to the point of chaining Illya up, never mind that Napoleon had at least supplied him with lovely company in that broom closet in the form of Gaby — he'd still trapped Illya in an imitation of his worst nightmare, reminding him of KGB punishments past and promised, of being locked in utter darkness for days on end, unable to move, unable to see. And, if Napoleon had to guess, with no food, little water and no bathroom breaks.

Napoleon had never detested himself more.

"You seem disturbed, Solo."

Napoleon hadn't even realized that Oleg had swiveled his owlish gaze towards him. He forced himself to release his clenched fists and pulled himself together.

"Not at all. Just marveling at the efficiency of your storage system. This where you keep all your spare KGB officers?"

"I believe that Kuryakin is our only current resident." Oleg shrugged.

"Look, I get why I'm mad at him. Why are you?"

"He failed a mission. He disobeyed orders. These are behaviors unbecoming of a KGB agent. And I cannot help but notice," Oleg said, with the air of a man delivering a major revelation, "that this pattern only started after he began associating with you."

"Are you accusing me of being a bad influence?" Napoleon said, knowing full well that he was. He was aware of only two instances of disobedience in Illya's career, and he'd been the prime instigator of each one.

"You may not be entirely to blame," Oleg conceded. "Certainly Waverly's lax discipline has contributed to this state of affairs. And too much soft living in the capitalist West has clearly planted the seeds of rebellion in Kuryakin's head. Hence, the need for correction."

The front of the crate fell open with a clatter of wood and nails. Boris set down the crowbar on a neighboring box, moving with an infuriating lack of haste. He produced a set of keys from a pocket and went inside, half-bent at the waist. Little metallic clinks told of complicated maneuvers with keys and chains.

He eventually emerged, dragging Illya with him, one massive hand clutching a handful of undershirt that had once been white, the other on the seat of a pair of trousers irremediably creased at the knees.

Oleg stepped forward into an area clear of boxes. Boris tossed Illya at Oleg's feet.

Illya landed on the cement with a muffled groan, unable to break his fall with his hands still pinioned behind him, his wrists banded identically red under loops of coarse rope.

Oleg nudged him with a toe. "Stand up," he ordered in Russian.

Illya struggled to comply, his movements awkward without the use of his arms. Eventually he managed to pull himself back on his knees and lever himself upright. His skin was covered in a fine sheen of sweat that glistened under the harsh artificial light, matting his blond hair to his forehead. The muscles of his limbs quivered minutely.

 _Stress positions,_ Napoleon's mind translated, another wave of revulsion churning through him.

"Tovarisch," Illya greeted Oleg, his voice low and hoarse.

"You know why you are here?" Oleg asked.

Illya nodded, his expression resigned. He looked around him, as if to take stock of who else was witnessing his humiliation. He spotted the driver first.

Then he saw Napoleon.

Illya's pale lips parted. He blinked once, twice, before his gaze swept Napoleon head to toe and back up again. Their eyes locked.

Napoleon got a sudden, uncomfortable feeling of déjà vu.

Illya's expression transformed as the surprise leached away. His jaw snapped shut, his mouth thinning into a grim line. His shoulders began to shake — not the trembling of over-tired muscles, but a sure omen of an incipient episode. Napoleon was intimately familiar with the signs.

Illya lunged forward with a guttural growl. Napoleon took a hasty step back, right into a stack of crates. He gulped.

"Kuryakin," Oleg's voice cut in sharply, and Illya stopped short as if yanked by an invisible leash. He stared at Napoleon, chest heaving, then mastered himself with visible effort and turned to Oleg.

"What," he bit out, "is _the American spy_ doing here?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _London Airport_ \- now Heathrow Airport
> 
>  _destination New York_ \- this would have been New York International Airport, now John F. Kennedy International Airport
> 
>  _Dulwich Picture Gallery_ \- the London gallery from which the _Portrait of Jacob de Gheyn III_ was almost stolen from in 1962, and where it hangs today.
> 
>  
> 
> _The addresses were in handwritten cursive Cyrillic, which formed a whole layer of encryption unto itself..._
> 
>  
> 
> So I got annoyed at not being able to read the Russian words some other authors sprinkle into their TMFU fics, and I decided to learn Cyrillic so I could at least pronounce it in my head. The regular alphabet was fine but when I got to cursive, I was like, lol nope. I mean, look at it.
> 
> [](//imgur.com/hD1HtJw)  
> 
> 
> _"These are pictures of a man purporting to be Lee Oswald, who presented himself at the Cuban and Soviet consulates in Mexico City asking for a visa."_
> 
> I went down some JFK conspiracy rabbit-holes for this chapter. All the stuff about the photographs is, to my best knowledge, accurate: a man claiming to be Oswald showed up in Mexico City asking for a visa to the Soviet Union, via Cuba, though the full story is a good deal more complicated than that and what actually happened still murkier. [This](http://22november1963.org.uk/a-little-incident-in-mexico-city) is a pretty decent summary of the controversy.
> 
> [](//imgur.com/rALoiQx)[](//imgur.com/CZ6niTE)
> 
> Contrast with a mugshot of Lee Harvey Oswald from earlier in 1963:
> 
> [](//imgur.com/GjZRxkB)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the long wait! Since it's been a while, please re-note the warnings about violence, rape threats, and interpersonal/cultural/institutional homophobia.

What the hell _was_ Napoleon doing here?

He'd been so laser-focused on his goal of finding Illya that he hadn't given a single thought to how they were going to extricate themselves from this mess. Find Illya, and the rest would sort itself out. That was how it had always worked on missions when they got separated.

But this wasn't a mission, and the KGB weren't technically enemy combatants here. It wasn't as if Napoleon could just throw Illya over his shoulder and run for their lives, like they might from any of their other adversaries. Illya was still, in fact and at heart, a KGB agent. He couldn't escape his handler, any more than Napoleon could expect to lash out at Sanders, without suffering severe repercussions.

"What do you expect, Kuryakin?" Oleg answered for him. "If your partner's negligence led to your capture and torture, would you not desire to see your pain revisited on him?"

Oh, no. _Hell,_ no. This was not what Napoleon had signed up for at all. He had adhered to the charade of an appropriately frosty relationship in the car for his and Illya's sake. He hadn't expected to have to _prove_ it. He wasn't about to just stand by and watch while Illya got punished.

Part of his brain was urging him to beat a strategic retreat. He knew where Illya was, now; he could call Gaby, set up a watch, tail them if they moved Illya from the warehouse. But the thought of leaving Illya here, at the mercy of his handler, left him cold. Who knew what Oleg might direct his KGB brutes to do to Illya. And Illya would just let them do it, instead of tearing them limb from limb, as he _should_.

"Indeed," Oleg continued, "perhaps our valued guest would prefer to do the honors?"

It took every ounce of self-control Napoleon had not to swing around and punch Oleg in the face. He reminded himself that he was supposed to hate Illya's guts. That he probably still would, if he hadn't fallen head over heels for the guy. The source of any objection he made had to come from elsewhere.

"You're all going to just stand by and watch, while a CIA agent beats up a fellow KGB officer?" he said skeptically.

Oleg shrugged. "It is our famous Russian hospitality. Besides, you would be saving Boris here a great deal of trouble."

Boris didn't look like he appreciated being spared the trouble.

"And I'm supposed to believe that Kuryakin's just going to let this happen. That he won't conveniently dispatch me the next time my back's turned on a mission."

"Of course not, so long as I order it. Kuryakin listens to me, like the good boy he is." Oleg gave Illya a sanctimonious pat on the shoulder. Illya blinked twice, but otherwise took it without flinching.

Napoleon wanted him to snap Oleg's neck like a twig.

But perhaps...this wasn't the worst possible option. If Illya was going to be punished no matter what, maybe it was better if it came from him. This way, Napoleon could retain some control over the situation, mitigate whatever damage Illya was about to receive as much as he could.

Illya might hate him for it afterwards. Would almost certainly loathe him afterwards. But at least he would have done whatever he could to help.

"Okay," he said. "I'm game."

Illya's head snapped up, Oleg's a second behind him. It may have been the tiniest of victories, but the surprise on Oleg's face was goddamn gratifying. Napoleon studiously ignored Illya's stare. He could easily picture how withering it would be. Illya would never have countenanced doing the reverse at Sanders' bidding, Napoleon was sure. He would sooner die than take instructions from a CIA handler.

"You are willing to do this," Oleg said slowly, apparently having trouble integrating this new information into whatever bullshit psychological profile he'd built up of Napoleon. He'd show Oleg _pacifist thief_.

He affected an insouciant slouch. "Like you said. I got tortured because of him. It's not like Waverly'll let me get any revenge. Might as well take up your offer while it stands."

"In that case," Oleg said, "Let me show you the equipment we have on hand."

They trooped _en masse_ to the room off to the side of the warehouse that Napoleon had taken to be an office.

It wasn't an office.

The smell was the first thing to hit him, a reek of sweat and desperation that clung to the confining walls and catapulted him back in time. Three days ago. Six months ago. Eighteen years ago, when he'd been a naïve teenager first realizing the depths of cruelty that man could inflict upon man.

That same cruelty was on flagrant display in this room, in the sheer number and variety of torture devices on display. Maybe he'd given Oleg too much credit as an interrogation expert, because this was a lot of toys to be playing with, far more than either Uncle Rudi or Salazar had thought to equip themselves with.

And right in the center of it all, in pride of place, was an electric chair. Not some decrepit relic from the war, but modern and efficient. The KGB did not cling to sentiment.

Napoleon's resolve faltered.

Oleg caught him gaping. "What, did you think we would ask you to batter Kuryakin with your bare hands?" He waved his hand around in an all-encompassing gesture. "You are our guest. Help yourself."

"I can use anything here that I want," Napoleon repeated, throat dry.

"Naturally. But perhaps stop short of major long-term physical injury," Oleg said. "As you say, your Mr. Waverly would not approve."

"No death, no dismemberment. Got it," Napoleon said distantly. His gaze swept the cluttered room, his eye drawn as if by gravity to the accursed chair in the middle.

He couldn't do this.

At least, not without giving Illya a choice.

Napoleon picked up a knife off a nearby table, which was strewn with all manner of sharp implements, and beckoned to Illya, who was standing grim-faced by Oleg's side. With the slightest hint of hesitation, Illya came over.

"Turn around."

Illya shot him a suspicious glance, but obeyed. Napoleon put the blade to the bonds around his wrists and sliced them in two, then used the butt of the knife to give Illya a hard shove in the small of his back.

Illya stumbled forward a step before catching himself. He turned, a wary, confused look on his face. Oleg narrowed his eyes in suspicion. The other two KGB men took a step in their direction.

"Solo?"

"Bare hands or not, I'm not touching him in this state. He's _filthy_. I trust there's some place in this god-forsaken warehouse of yours where he can wash up?"

"A reasonable request from a fastidious man like yourself." Oleg recovered his earlier, more pleasant demeanor. He nodded his permission at Illya. "Go."

"Yeah, go," Napoleon echoed the order, desperately hoping that Illya knew how to take a hint. "And don't come back till you're properly clean."

Illya's eyes narrowed at him for a brief second before he walked off stiffly. Boris made as if to follow. Napoleon restored the knife to its original location, accidentally sweeping some of its neighbors off the cluttered table, right at Boris' feet.

"Oh dear, how clumsy of me," he lamented, making absolutely no move to pick them up. He was a guest here, after all, as Oleg kept reminding him.

Boris shot him a death glare and began to pick them up. Napoleon began to wander around the tables, inspecting possible weapons, picking the occasional one up for further scrutiny, trying to buy Illya as much time as possible. Oleg and the driver kept a wary eye on him, clearly beginning to regret giving him access to such an arsenal.

Napoleon had just dismissed a set of thumbscrews when he heard a discreet cough at the door. He looked up. His heart sank.

Illya had done his level best to wash up. His hair was slicked back and it looked like he'd rinsed and wrung out his undershirt, without much effect other than to transform it from grimy white to grimy translucent. Boris had lost no time in collaring him, wrapping his sausage-like fingers round the back of Illya's neck. Not that Illya gave any appearance of trying to escape.

Napoleon had never really expected Illya to have run. There wasn't an ounce of cowardice in him, and Napoleon hated and loved him for it.

"Have you made your selection, Solo?" Oleg said.

 _Flesh wounds._ That was the sort of injury Illya would take in his stride, brush off as if it was nothing. He looked around for an implement that would qualify as sufficiently menacing and yet with skill could minimize any actual long-term damage.

His eyes landed on a whip. He picked it up and balanced it on his palm. Yeah. He knew how to use this. His hand tightened in a fist around the handle.

"I must say I am surprised," Oleg remarked. "I thought you would go for the chair. An eye for an eye. Is that not how your expression also goes?"

Napoleon leered unpleasantly, channeling the late, unlamented Uncle Rudi. "I'm in an old-fashioned mood." He looked at Illya. "I don't think I need to tell you what to do."

"No, sir," Illya responded stolidly, and shattered Napoleon's already broken heart into a thousand tiny pieces.

Napoleon turned away, covering his distress by shrugging off his jacket. He began to roll up a sleeve, paused when he recalled the ugly purple bruise around his wrist, then decided that it would help him play up the role of an aggrieved partner. He raised the fabric past his elbows, looked back at Illya, and gaped.

Illya had peeled off his shirt, and Napoleon was presented with the sight of miles and miles of creamy skin, taut over a muscled torso that tapered to a slender waist.

It took the sight of him now to realize how much Napoleon had yearned for this sight. How much he'd thirsted for skin. Up until now he'd had to sate himself with glimpses of slivers of white wrists and a pale neck before the rest of Illya disappeared under a long-sleeved turtleneck or a suit.

With a start, Napoleon realised that in all the time they'd shared a hotel room, he'd never once seen Illya in a state of _dishabille_. Even after their practice sessions in the gym at HQ, Illya'd always disappeared into a cubicle to change, as if he was ashamed of his body.

Napoleon couldn't see why. The man was a work of art, an Adonis. It ought to be a crime to cover up something this beautiful. It was like sticking a fig leaf on Michelangelo's David.

Then Illya turned around, and, oh, his _back_.

His back was a palimpsest of scars, a battlefield of pits and trenches, an entire history of violence carved into his flesh. None of the marks were the the harsh red of a recent chastisement, but were faded and spread with age. Illya had grown up with those scars.

Illya folded his shirt into a neat square, with an air of ritual, though he appeared stymied a moment later at the lack of space on the nearby table. Apparently typical KGB torture chambers were a little more considerate of their victims' sartorial needs.

In the end he bent and placed it on the floor, before stepping up to a bare metal pipe running along the ceiling. He reached up for it, the muscles of his back rippling as they stretched, and wrapped both hands around it. It was just high enough that Illya's heels had to leave the ground, all his weight resting on the balls of his feet.

"Do you need to be tied down?" Napoleon asked.

" _No,_ " Illya said shortly, sounding insulted. At least this time he'd omitted the _sir_.

"Okay then." Napoleon gave the whip a couple of experimental swishes. Illya tensed a little at the sound of the whip slicing through the air, before leaning ever so slightly forward, bracing his head against the triangle of his arms, his muscles visibly relaxing on his exhale.

It was that tiny movement that very nearly broke Napoleon. Without it, he could have deceived himself into thinking that Illya's scars had been inflicted so long ago that he would have forgotten what a whipping felt like, though a part of Napoleon knew that such traumas were never really forgotten. But no. That deliberate relaxation of the muscles...Illya knew all too well how to take this.

Napoleon took a deep breath and the pulse of the room. The two KGB underlings were ranged behind him, ready to enjoy the spectacle. Oleg was standing to the side, watching him and Illya like a hawk. He had to make this look good.

But it didn't mean he had to make it fast. He would probably be inflicting even more damage on Illya's psyche as a result, but at least he could make the whipping as scar-free as possible. Besides, Oleg would probably appreciate the added element of psychological torture.

So he waited, until there was a discontented stir behind him and the tension began to seep back into Illya's shoulders. He drew the whip back.

The room was low-ceilinged, the walls close, designed to work its victims into a state of claustrophobic panic. The crack of the whip tore through the silence and echoed off every concrete surface, rolling around the space like thunder filling a stormy sky.

Illya's body shuddered with the impact, but he didn't cry out. Whatever he'd been expecting from Napoleon, it hadn't been mercy. Napoleon drew the whip back again.

The second lash landed right on top of the first.

This, Illya hadn't been prepared for. His body lurched forward, the momentum of the whip forcing a pained grunt from his throat. The fingers of his right hand came away from the pipe, and he scrabbled to restore his grip, his breaths coming in low gasps.

Without waiting, Napoleon cracked the whip a third time.

This time, the already-reddened skin split and spilled blood. The whip came away coated with it.

" _Blyad',_ " swore the driver behind Napoleon, coarsely, admiringly. It was the only sound in the room.

His initial goal accomplished, Napoleon took a breather, rotating away a twinge in his shoulder. Then he applied himself again, laying down stripes in blood down the rest of Illya's back.

He might as well have been flailing away at a side of beef hanging from a butcher's hook for all the reaction he got. The break had given Illya time to regulate his breathing, and now he just hung on grimly, silently, his knuckles turning progressively whiter with every strike of the lash.

Napoleon counted them, at first. Five. Six. Then ten. Then twenty. How many was enough? He had absolutely no clue. They'd never talked about this. Napoleon might know how many stripes an angry farmer in the Midwest might give his disappointment of a son, but what constituted adequate punishment in the KGB was beyond the limits of his experience.

If he'd known that this might happen, he would have asked Illya.

If he'd known, he'd have worked from the beginning to free Illya from the clutches of the KGB, tried talking him out of his misplaced loyalty to the organization that had taken so much from him.

He would have failed, but at least he would have tried. And he would have known how much of this would finally be enough. He would have known not to have come here in the first place, known that far from helping, he'd only be maneuvered into making Illya hate him that much more with every lash he landed on Illya's back.

Thirty. Forty. Or was it still thirty-nine? Napoleon was beginning to lose count, his mind numbing with repetition. His world narrowed to the length of his arm, the extension of the whip, and the patch of skin that was his target. And the weight of Oleg's ever-present gaze, watching them both.

"Stop," Oleg said, at last. Napoleon stopped. Illya pried his hands off the pipe, and put them down by his sides, very cautiously. He turned to face Oleg, concealing the carnage of his back.

"Tell me," Oleg addressed Illya in English, "why you failed to carry out this plan of yours. How you led your partner to be captured."

"I..." Illya's gaze darted over to Napoleon, before dropping once again to the floor. "I was hung over. I lost the car soon after we started."

 _Lie._ Illya never got drunk. He'd been hale and — well, not _hearty_ , exactly, but his usual dour self that fateful morning. It was Napoleon's first clue, since this entire ordeal had begun, that Illya might be putting on a performance just as much as he was.

Oleg seemed to suspect so, at least. He turned to Napoleon. "Does this explanation satisfy you?"

Napoleon played in. "Wouldn't be surprised. He and Miss Teller polished off an entire bottle of my Laphroaig between them the night before. And she's tiny."

Oleg nodded his acceptance. "Very well. You may continue," he instructed, and Illya obediently turned back to the pipe. Too obediently.

"No," Napoleon said.

Illya jerked to a stop, and turned to look at Napoleon, his face comically perplexed. Napoleon wondered whether he'd ever seen someone directly disobey Oleg before.

Oleg seemed equally unaccustomed to the experience. "No? I was given to understand that you were tortured quite badly. You consider this even?"

"I'll be the judge of whether we're even or not. Besides —" Napoleon coiled the bloodied whip and tossed it onto a table — "I have a date this evening. And I never keep a beautiful woman waiting."

"A date," Oleg repeated. "Really."

Napoleon lifted his chin. "Is that so hard to believe?"

"You were unconscious for three days. You woke up just a few hours ago," Oleg pointed out.

"I can get a surprising amount done in just a few hours."

Oleg looked at him consideringly, before breaking out into a spine-chilling smirk. "I fully understand. Here you are three days deprived of sex, when you rarely go a day without."

 _That_ little detail wasn't in their mission reports. It must have come from Illya. But then it would hardly have been news to the KGB. Napoleon's reputation as a serial womanizer had probably preceded him all the way to Lubyanka. It had likely been in the briefing Illya had been given when they'd first been partnered.

The idea of Illya cataloging and reporting every woman Napoleon had picked up in every hotel bar and lounge was a little mortifying, but Napoleon supposed it was to be expected. He'd had to give them _something_ , and as details went, his lack of killer instinct and penchant for beautiful people were probably the least of it. So long as he'd stuck to only reporting the _women_...

"It would be inconsiderate in the extreme," Oleg continued, "if we delayed you from releasing your pent-up sexual energies."

"I'm...glad we understand each other," Napoleon ground out through gritted teeth. Though he appreciated Oleg's forgetting the embarrassing little detail that he was hardly up to the task at the moment.

"So why not expend them here?" Oleg went on.

Napoleon blinked. "Excuse me? Because unless Boris here has done a slap-up job in concealing certain womanly assets, I don't see what you could possibly be suggesting."

Even with his limited English, Boris recognized the jibe for what it was. He snarled and lunged forward. Oleg warned him back with a shake of his head, before turning back to Napoleon, the grating smile still on his face.

"I understand the concept of homosexual relations is far from foreign to you," he said.

 _Dammit, Peril._ Now that was an actually actionable piece of blackmail to hold over his head. Not to the CIA, who knew, of course, and had taken advantage of the fact on multiple occasions. And not to Illya and Gaby, from whom that little fact had proved impossible to hide. But apart from them and the many satisfied men Napoleon had seduced all over the world, no one else was supposed to know. All it would take was a report to a local police station in just about any jurisdiction in the world, including right here in the U.K., and Napoleon would be behind bars, sentenced to be shot up with estrogen, or actually shot.

And as it was, Boris and the driver were looking at him like he was some species of mutant cockroach, fit only for crushing underfoot.

Napoleon set aside the wave of betrayal that had swept through him. "Perhaps," he said noncommittally, "but I still don't see..."

Oleg gestured towards Illya, and the full horror of what the KGB handler was proposing suddenly coalesced in Napoleon's mind.

They wanted him to... _rape_ Illya? Just because he had indulged — allegedly — in Russia's national pastime and messed up a mission?

Blood pounded in Napoleon's ears, so loud he could barely think. "Let me get this straight. You want me to fuck your agent."

Oleg nodded.

"As punishment."

Oleg nodded again, looking maddeningly casual as he dangled before Napoleon the prize he'd craved for so long.

He'd dreamed of this — of being allowed to take his pleasure with Illya, of tumbling him onto a mattress, of having Illya trapped between his thighs, cheeks becomingly pink, staring up into his face through those heavenly blue eyes, sweetly compliant for once to Napoleon's will —

But not like this. _Never_ like this. He wasn't going to be another in the long line of fucked-up obedience tests Illya seemed to think he was required to pass. He'd already done enough to Illya as it was.

"You wound me, Colonel. What makes you think sex with me would ever be a punishment?"

Oleg huffed. "You are a man of the world, Solo. I'm sure I can leave it to your imagination."

"I don't have..."

"You have time, Agent Solo. After all, you are an efficient man. Think of all the things you can get done in just a few short minutes."

Such as Illya, whose cheeks were flushed with a mixture of shame, rage, humiliation, and resignation. The last offended Napoleon. _Fight,_ he wanted to yell at Peril. _Kill them all, like I know you can._ He wanted Illya to fight, to murder anyone who'd even think of doing that to him, but he knew it would only end with Illya becoming a marked man, hunted for the rest of his days. He was fucked either way, quite literally.

The only thing that could save him now was Napoleon's tongue.

"Well, Solo? What do you think?" Oleg said.

"I think," Napoleon said, "that your dossier on me is missing a crucial fact."

Oleg frowned. "And that is?"

"Yes, I like sex. But I don't use it to hurt people."

"Come now, Solo. Sex is a weapon. You use it all the time."

"As a _tool_ , not a weapon. And it should _never_ be a punishment." Out of the corner of his eye, Napoleon saw Illya shoot him a startled look.

"Besides," Napoleon said, warming to his theme, "what kind of self-respecting spy would just hand the KGB proof for blackmail on a plate? Or did you think I wouldn't notice your cameras?" Napoleon stalked over to the electric chair and ripped out a tiny glassy orb out of the headrest. He dropped it onto the concrete and ground it to dust under the sole of his shoe.

An expression of grudging respect crossed Oleg's face. "Well done, Agent Solo. You are as good a thief as they say. Tell me, have you ever considered a change of employment?"

Napoleon's head spun. What exactly was Oleg offering him now? He was too drained to tease out the workings of Oleg's warped mind. "Huh?" he said, intelligently.

"Your terms of your employment with the CIA were agreed under duress," Oleg elaborated. "I can ensure that your time with the KGB will be much more pleasant."

Napoleon's jaw slackened. Oleg was trying to turn him. Was that what all this was? A goddamn _job interview_? The KGB's twisted idea of a recruitment poster?

Not that the CIA was all sunshine and roses, but at least Sanders had never offered him out to be fucked by a mortal enemy.

"No offense, Colonel, but if the penalty for getting drunk on the job is rape, I'm going to have to decline."

Oleg didn't look in the least bit abashed. He waved Napoleon's concern away. "Such a punishment would not, of course, apply to you. For one thing, perhaps you would enjoy it a bit too much, yes?" Not realizing that he'd just dug his hole even deeper, Oleg continued, "That applies only to special cases, such as Kuryakin."

"To people you know would not betray their country, no matter how badly their country has treated them, you mean? That's an odd way to reward loyalty."

Oleg shrugged, dismissing his logic. "Can I take it that you categorically refuse to do as I have offered?"

Napoleon squared his shoulders. "You may."

"And what if I told you that if you did not comply, Kuryakin would be sent back to the Soviet Union?" Oleg said slyly.

This was it, Napoleon knew. Oleg's final gambit, the culmination of the interrogation that had started in the car. The answer to this question would change their lives forever.

He cast the die.

"Is that supposed to be a _threat_? What makes you think I _want_ to continue working with him? He's been a thorn in my side ever since Berlin. Go on, take him back to Moscow," Napoleon spat out, steadfastly refusing to look at Illya. "And frankly, if Kuryakin's your finest, I sincerely hope Waverly never accepts another KGB agent into U.N.C.L.E."

That didn't sit too well with Boris, either, and Oleg was forced to restrain him once more.

"So go ahead," Napoleon challenged, making his voice drip with disdain. "You'd be doing us both a favor."

Oleg's beady eyes rested on Napoleon. "You are a talented actor, Solo."

"CIA agent tired of having to babysit a KGB agent who's been sending back blackmail on me? I can assure you, no acting is required."

"Very well." Oleg glanced at his watch, and so did Illya, reflexively, before he realized he wasn't wearing his, again. "You must be going, Agent Solo, or you will be late for your dinner date. May I offer you a lift? As it turns out, I, too, have to head back to the city. I am dining with somebody you know."

"Oh?"

"Yes, Douglas Page."

Chief of station for the CIA in London. Back-door diplomacy over dinner, the KGB must really be desperate to clear the air over Kennedy's assassination. What Napoleon would give to be a fly on the wall in that discussion...but he had enough of his own problems. He wasn't about to get himself drawn any further into Oleg's machinations.

"Is that so," he returned evenly. "Thank you, but no."

Oleg shrugged. "As you wish. Come." He motioned to the driver, and the three of them walked out of that horrible room, leaving Illya and Boris behind them to — clean up? _Continue?_ Napoleon didn't dare to risk his victory, however Pyrrhic it might be, by asking. He could only hope that Boris' open disgust at Napoleon's proclivities meant he wouldn't carry on where Oleg had left off.

And he certainly wasn't about to look back, even if that meant the last image he'd have of Illya was of him looking forlornly at a bare wrist, his back striped with Napoleon's handiwork. The KGB didn't make idle threats. Illya might be shipped back to Kalinigrad this very night, en route to Moscow, or worse, a Siberian gulag alongside his dad, and there wasn't a damn thing Napoleon, or Gaby, or Waverly himself would be able to do about it.

The sky was already inky-black when they stepped outside into the chill of night, the wind picking up an icy edge as it traveled over the water. Napoleon shivered involuntarily, drawing his jacket tighter around himself.

Oleg was deep in conversation with one of the "longshoremen", but still he noticed. "Last chance for a lift, Solo," he called.

Napoleon replied with a dismissive wave. He'd rather swim all the way back than get into a car with Oleg again.

He set off on a westerly course, heading back towards the glow of the city lights. The car swooped past him a minute later, Oleg giving him an ironic wave — not that Napoleon could see it through the dark windows, but he felt sure it had been there.

He didn't return the courtesy. Instead he buried his hands in his pockets and walked away as fast as he could, his mind idly scheming plots to break Illya out of that warehouse that he'd never be able to put into action.

Which was when he noticed he was being followed. By the same longshoreman Oleg had been giving instructions to.

Napoleon wanted to scream. When was it going to be enough? Even after everything, still he was being tested. Oleg was checking that his story about having a date was the truth.

Which meant he'd have to make it true, somewhere between here and the city.

He turned another corner and saw, before him, the majestic red edifice of a British telephone booth. He hurried inside and dug out some change from his pocket.

Napoleon's finger hovered over the digits for a moment, before dialing a number from memory. He pressed his forehead against the phone, uttering a silent prayer. _Pick up, pick up, pick up._

His fourpence fell through with a series of clunks.

Wow. He hadn't expected that to work, what with the way his luck had been going lately.

"Venus," he said, before she could get a word in — he didn't trust the KGB not to tap every public and private phone within a quarter-mile of their warehouse — "It's Napoleon."

There was a brief pause, before a low, throaty voice acknowledged, " _Napoleon._ "

"Listen, darling, I'm terribly sorry, but I've been delayed. Can we meet directly at the restaurant?"

Venus hesitated for only a split-second. She was a pro, after all. "Very well. I'll see you at _L'Elysienne_ , eight o'clock."

Of course she would pick one of the swankiest restaurants in London, with a waiting list three months long. It was a good thing Napoleon had spent the winter of '56 cultivating relationships with every restaurateur in the city with a half-decent wine cellar, though he'd probably still have to grease the maître d's palm with a hefty bribe for the privilege of bumping someone off that list.

It would be worth it.

"See you at eight." He replaced the receiver, took a glance behind him in the mirrored surface of the keypad. His "longshoreman" was still there, not even attempting to skulk.

Well, if the Russians wanted to see him having a good time without Illya, he would have to give it to them.

* * *

"Flowers for your lady, mister?"

"Sure. Why not." Napoleon dug out the remains of his rather depleted stash of cash from his pocket and handed it to the delighted flower-seller. "Roses, please. No, not the red. The pink." She handed him a massive bouquet of dark pink roses and offered her profuse thanks before moving on to her next target.

Napoleon plunged his nose into the flowers and took a deep whiff of their scent, before settling down to wait a few more minutes. It was only five past, not sufficiently "fashionably late" for his dinner companion to arrive. The familiar routines of conventional dating. If only things could have been that easy between him and Illya.

Then again, Illya was utterly predictable in other ways. He would have turned up right on time and turned up his nose at a bunch of roses. Maybe if Napoleon first picked off all the petals and left the thorns, Illya might be bemused enough to accept it. Most likely as a makeshift weapon to wield against Napoleon, after what he'd done to Illya earlier.

He couldn't think about that now. He had to demonstrate the same single-minded, dedicated devotion to his companion tonight as he would to any of his dates. More, even, to satisfy whatever ridiculous Russian romantic ideals his tail, lurking in a convenient nearby alleyway, might be secretly harboring within his soul.

About time now. Napoleon snapped into the attitude of the attentive lover as, on cue, Venus Cavendish sashayed down the sidewalk, heart-stoppingly gorgeous as always in a cream-colored double-breasted trench coat that contrasted beautifully with her dark, bobbed hair, with matching knee-high boots that only accentuated her tall, svelte figure. Even Napoleon's faithful follower, slouched against a dingy wall, straightened at the sight of her.

"Venus. How wonderful to see you," he said loudly, leaning in to give her a kiss on the cheek. "Three o'clock," he whispered into her ear, then withdrew, offering her the roses.

" _Napoleon,_ " she returned pointedly. She accepted the flowers, inhaling their aroma while surreptitiously glancing at their spy.

"Mmm, how lovely," she said, a sultry smile playing about her full lips. She tucked two fingers around his tie and yanked him towards her, lips landing on lips. She raised the bouquet as cover and murmured, "If you've put the KGB on my tail, Solo, I'll bury you where you'll never be found."

Napoleon gasped for breath against the knot of his tie, tight where she held it fast. "They're here for me, Cavs, not you. I swear."

"Well, that's reassuring. _Not._ "

"They're here to make sure I have the time of my life. _Really._ I told them I had a date. They're making sure I wasn't lying to them."

"Oh? And since when do you not already have a date lined up for the evening, Solo? That's not like you."

"It's been...hectic," he choked out.

"Hm." She released her grip. Napoleon had absolutely no problem playing the part of the breathless suitor recovering from an out-of-this-world kiss. He tidied his tie, a little dazedly. She gave him a cool once-over.

"You look like shit, Solo," Cavendish said pleasantly, her adoring smile still intact.

"Only," Napoleon said, "because you're accustomed to seeing me at my most scintillating."

"So you expect me to pretend to have a good time for a KGB agent's prurient pleasure."

"I expect you to actually _have_ a good time." Napoleon stretched his mouth into its widest grin. The KGB wouldn't be able to tell it was fake from across the street.

She peered into the crowded restaurant. "Very well, but only because I'm mildly impressed you managed to get a table here on such short notice."

"Nothing but the best for you, darling."

"You'll still owe me," she warned. "And you know what I'm going to ask for."

"Let's...discuss that inside, shall we?" He held the door open for her.

Jean-Claude bustled up immediately, an ebullient smile on his face. "Monsieur Solo, Mademoiselle. It is an honor to have you dining with us tonight. Your table is ready. Follow me, please."

"After you, Cavs." They followed the maître d' through the packed restaurant to a small table strategically placed against a wall, but just visible to someone trying to peer inside from across the street, as Napoleon had requested.

"If I may take your coats, s'il vous plaît...your menus." He took their drink orders and buzzed off with an armful of flowers.

Cavendish leaned conspiratorially across the table.

"All right, Solo. Where's my Rembrandt?"

"Excuse me, _your_ Rembrandt? I don't remember declaring that you'd won the bidding."

Cavendish arched a perfectly-shaped eyebrow. "There is no way that skinflint Juarez outbid me."

"You two aren't the only fences in the world. Ah, merci, Jean-Claude." Napoleon waited while the maître d' poured, then bustled away again.

"A toast," he offered, "to the most beautiful fence in the entire world, though perhaps not always the one with the most resources on hand when a famous painting abruptly goes on the market." He drained his Château Lafite.

"You're playing with fire, Solo," Cavendish warned him, but she was smiling. She matched him, downing her glass in a single gulp before setting it down, her smile turning wistful. "Napoleon Solo's famous bidding wars. You had everyone in a tizzy, thinking you were finally back in the game."

"Not quite yet, alas."

"So what really happened to the painting, Solo? Because you sure as hell don't look like a man who's just earned himself a tidy little fortune."

"I...bet it on a wager," Napoleon said, which was near enough to the truth.

"And?"

"I lost everything," he confessed.

Cavendish ran her tongue over her teeth, grinning like the proverbial Cheshire cat. "Napoleon Solo makes a mistake. You know, all this is worth it, just to hear you admit that."

"Wouldn't be the first time," Napoleon said, thinking of the little "accident" that had betrayed him to the four-nation task force that had been set up to track him down. He signaled for a re-pour.

"All right, I'll let you off the hook for the painting. But I still expect compensation for bringing me to the attention of the KGB."

"I'll make it up to you," he promised.

"First dibs on your next heist," she said instantly.

"Done." Easy enough promise, when he had no idea when, or indeed if, his next heist would ever come.

She settled back in her seat, satisfied. "Your tail still out there?" she asked.

He was. "Points for persistence." The maître d' arrived once more at the table. "Jean-Claude, would you be a good fellow and deliver a bottle of your finest, strongest vodka to the man skulking in the alleyway across the street?"

Jean-Claude fielded the request without blinking. "Of course, Monsieur Solo. Shall I also provide a glass?"

Napoleon considered. "Somehow, I don't think that will be necessary."

Jean-Claude dispatched a waiter to do Napoleon's bidding and they watched as Mr. Longshoreman accepted the bottle with bemusement. Well-trained, if not entirely disciplined, he inspected the cap for puncture holes before taking a wary swig. His expression transformed into undisguised pleasure and he lifted his bottle in thanks. Napoleon tipped his glass in return.

"I think that should take care of our problem for the rest of the night." Napoleon returned his attention to his companion, as the man faded into the shadows to enjoy his unexpected bounty. "Shall we order?"

Ordinarily Napoleon would draw out a meal like this as long as possible, savoring every delectable morsel the _L'Elysienne_ served up, basking in the beauty of the woman seated across from him. But tonight all that was wasted on him. The quail that he ordered, perfectly roasted, turned to ash in his mouth, though he ate valiantly so as not to disappoint Jean-Claude, hovering anxiously in the background. The 1928 Lafite should have been a wonderful vintage, but its delicate notes were lost in the acidic burn of vinegar. He downed it anyway, desperate to hold at bay the depression that would surely descend once the immediate peril — the immediate danger had passed.

Cavendish noticed, of course. He must have looked so utterly woebegone that after dessert she actually took pity on him and invited him back to hers. When he tried to beg off, she persisted.

"You don't look like you should be alone tonight, Solo."

"That's not really necessary," he murmured. Their tail had disappeared into the night, probably drunk out of his senses. No point keeping up this charade any longer.

"Come on." She wound her arm through his. "Let's drown our sorrows together. Commiserate over mislaid art and parents with terrible naming instincts."

Napoleon knew she'd want something more than that, but right now the prospect of returning to his lonely apartment and its massive, empty bed was too daunting for words. And he did owe her, for playing along tonight. Cavendish could be hard as nails, but she was always there for you when it counted. "All right," he conceded.

Cavs had moved up in the world since Napoleon had last been invited over to her apartment. She now occupied the penthouse suite of a converted Georgian townhouse in Soho that glowed creamy yellow in the light of the street-lamps. The interior was furnished with a combination of ultra-modern furniture and exquisite Renaissance forgeries, dazzling and contradictory, but somehow she'd made it work. Possibly because she was so dazzling and contrarian herself.

"I'll just go find something to put these in," she said, nodding at the flowers. "Take off your jacket and make yourself at home."

Napoleon peeled off his jacket and stumbled over to the couch. He rued the lack of his jacket as soon as his back hit the cold leather. It was chilly in here — typical English lack of central heating. He looked over hopefully towards the fireplace, but it was playing host to a reduced reproduction of Michelangelo's _Pieta_ , most likely a private reminder not to cook whatever paintings were currently stashed up the flue.

He wanted the fire. Wanted to reach into the flame, to feel the burn, searing, cleansing, so different from the insidious snakes of electricity that gnawed at you from the inside out. He wanted to scour the skin off the hands that had desecrated Illya's back.

Instead he stood unsteadily and made his way to the bathroom. He turned on the hot tap to its max and scrubbed the sin off his hands, till they were red and raw.

When the water finally turned tepid, he shut it off, and forewent wiping his hands on the luxuriant towel for smoothing down his hair. He glanced at his face in the mirror.

Bad mistake.

He only just made it to the toilet when his dinner made a reappearance, in reverse order. He retched the last of it out, panting over the bowl. He lowered his forehead to the cool porcelain. He'd never felt quite so wretched in his entire life.

"Solo?" Cavendish's voice sounded through the door. "Everything all right in there?"

Everything was precisely the opposite of "all right". "Just a minute!" he called instead. He hurriedly flushed the evidence of his break-down away and rinsed the sour smell of vomit out of his mouth. He smoothed down his hair mechanically, avoiding the mirror this time, and emerged from the bathroom.

Cavendish was lounging on the divan, her legs elegantly curled beneath her, behind what looked like a fairly credible forgery of a Ming vase, its particular shade of blue contrasting nicely with the pink roses he'd bought her. She'd changed her clothes, and was now clad in a sheer black camisole that on any other day Napoleon would have called "stunning". Now he just thought that she looked chilled.

She also looked annoyed, possibly because his lengthy sojourn in the WC had caused him to miss her grand re-entrance into the salon. Cavendish had always liked her grand entrances. But seeing that she'd made an impression anyway, her expression softened and she held out a hand to him.

He took it, and slumped onto the couch beside her. The jazz song that had been playing ended and the first few tripping piano notes of a Thelonious Monk number tinkled from Cavendish's record player.

"Do you remember when we heard Monk play in Paris?" she said, as the trumpet joined in the melody. "Right after our first heist. The Caravaggios."

Of course he remembered. He'd been flush with self-importance, then, enchanted with his own cleverness. Cavendish had just handed him his cut of the proceeds, and he'd set out to paint the town red, enjoying the admiring stares of men and women alike as he threw money with wild abandon at a roulette table, not realizing he was addicted to the life before it was too late.

The same way he hadn't recognized that his feelings for Illya weren't just an itch he could scratch away until they'd become a deep, longing need.

What an utter fool he'd been. He should've seen today's outcome a mile away. He was a thief, after all, cursed to take and never to have. Most of the beautiful things he'd stolen had been fenced almost as soon as he'd gotten his hands on them. The few pieces he'd kept to savor for himself had been confiscated by Interpol when he'd been arrested, leaving him with a minuscule collection in the only safehouse they'd never found.

Cavendish produced a tumbler of madeira and two glasses. "A toast," she proposed. "To past and future successes."

Napoleon was only too happy to replace the alcohol he'd just purged from his system. They proceeded to race each other to the bottom of the bottle while trading memories of long-ago heists, under-the-table deals, and skin-of-the-teeth getaways from the authorities, anything to banish thoughts of Illya from his brain.

Within an hour, they were pleasantly buzzed, slouching against the cushions and lying half-draped against each other, the record spinning music-less in the corner. Cavendish set her glass on the table and turned to him, purpose in her striking green eyes. She put her fingers in the knot of his tie and loosened it.

"Cavs..."

"Shhhh," she soothed. "Just relax." Her fingers trailed down his chest, undoing buttons as she went. The front of his shirt fell open. He tried to protest, but the alcohol made it very difficult to care, especially when she began to plant a column of kisses from his collarbone down to his navel.

Then she went lower.

"Hmm. Should I be offended?" She looked up from his visibly soft crotch, doubly obvious under its scant layer of protection.

Napoleon was actually kind of surprised that it hadn't perked up even a little. He'd always thought that his libido would survive a nuclear holocaust. This was possibly the most humiliating way to discover that he was wrong.

"It's...just following doctor's orders."

"Why, what happened?"

He could make something up. Should make something up. Laugh it away, like he always did. But he was so, so very tired.

"Someone put several thousand volts through it for fun," he admitted.

Cavendish recoiled. "Who would do such a thing to Napoleon Junior?"

Napoleon shrugged. "Stakes are high in the spy game."

Cavendish sat back up and put a hand on his chest, warm and inviting. "Come back to art theft, darling. It's safer."

"Only another four and a half years to go." Assuming that the CIA would ever let him go. The years stretched before him like a gaping maw. If Illya would only be there to share them, they might have passed like a childhood's summer. But without him...

To his horror, tears welled in his eyes. He tried to blink them away, but one escaped and rolled down his cheek. He tried to turn his face away, but she noticed. Of course she noticed. She rubbed a thumb gently across his cheek, smearing the moisture across his skin.

"The Napoleon Solo I know wouldn't cry over a lost painting. Or even over getting tortured," she said, her voice thoughtful.

Napoleon grimaced. Why had he ever agreed to come back here? Cavendish was way too sharp not to work it out.

"You didn't just lose the painting, did you? You wouldn't react like this to losing some _thing_. You've lost some _one_." She laughed, suddenly, but there was nothing cruel in her mirth. "Napoleon Solo, the man who steals art and hearts wherever he goes, actually had his heart _stolen_."

"Cavs, please." He really wasn't in the mood for this.

"So who's the lucky man?" she said.

Napoleon's head whipped up. Surely he wasn't _that_ obvious.

But apparently he was.

"Let me guess. Tall, blond, blue-eyed. But that's not all, is it, otherwise you'd have lost your heart a thousand times over before this. There's something special about this one."

"He's kind," Napoleon blurted out, despite himself. But what harm could it do now, with Illya perhaps already miles and miles away and far beyond his reach? The only person he could possibly hurt with a recitation of Illya's virtues was himself, and he deserved to feel it. He _should_ feel every stab of guilt, of grief, over what he'd let slip through his fingers. "He's kind, even though he shouldn't be. After everything life's thrown at him, he should be cold, and hard, and cruel. But he's not. He's the exact opposite of that."

Cavendish slid his head into her lap and made an encouraging noise for him to continue.

"He's...a pillar of strength. And honorable, even though he grew up surrounded by wolves. He's simply the best person you could ask for to have your back."

"He sounds like quite the paragon."

"He's also always angry," Napoleon added, because he bore no illusions that Illya was perfect. "And possibly the single most infuriating man I've ever met."

She smiled down at him. "And you love him for it."

Napoleon looked away. "I wish I didn't."

"You don't mean that," Cavendish admonished him, gently hooking a lock of hair behind his ear, drawing his gaze back towards her.

Napoleon shrugged, a sharp, despairing gesture. "It doesn't matter anymore whether I do or not."

"He only loves women?"

"No. Maybe. I don't know. I never even got to fucking ask him."

"Is he dead?"

"No. God, no." Though he had no way of knowing for sure, just that he'd done everything he could to persuade Oleg that there was no love lost between them.

"Then there's always a chance you'll find him, someday. Or that he'll find you."

Napoleon shook his head. "It was impossible from the beginning. I'm CIA, he's..."

"KGB," Cavendish inferred. "Talk about star-crossed lovers. But then you've always wanted beautiful, impossible things."

"I just wanted things to stay the way they were," Napoleon lamented. But then he'd been an impulsive idiot, and had gone after something he should never have dreamed of reaching for. Maybe if he'd let Illya well alone, if he'd just let lapse his resolution to confess all to Illya, remembered that he'd been out of his mind with pain when he'd made it, things would have gone on the way he'd wanted. Surely that constant itch of longing would have faded, become bearable, given time. Instead he'd let his greed lead him after something...someone he didn't deserve. He could only hope that Oleg wasn't making Illya pay for Napoleon's avarice as he spoke.

Or if only he hadn't been such a coward, and had 'fessed up to Illya earlier, when Gaby had told him to. Instead he'd tried to tread the middle ground, and ended up in this limbo, having made the worst possible choice every time one had been offered to him.

"Cavs, d'you think..." he began, before being interrupted by a single long honk followed by four shorter honks. Morse code for NS. Napoleon scrambled to his feet, all inebriation forgotten, and peered out through a crack in the curtains.

"Another of your nemeses?" Cavendish had sat up, and was watching him intently, ready to spring into action.

He shook his head. "Ally, this time." Gaby's modifications to the BMW made it easily recognizable even from above. He began buttoning up his shirt. "Thank you, Cavs, for this evening. I owe you one."

"I won't let you forget it, Solo," she promised.

He didn't expect her to. He planted a goodbye kiss on her cheek, grabbed his jacket, and sprinted down the four flights of stairs three steps at a time.

Gaby had her window rolled down, and tossed him an impatient glance as he appeared.

"Gaby."

"Get in," she said, tight-lipped, and he obeyed automatically. They peeled away from the curb with a screech, her foot flat on the accelerator. This urgency could only stem from one cause.

"Illya. He's not —" His throat closed up around the word.

"He called me from the docks," Gaby said tersely.

The breath left him in a rush. "He's — okay?"

She shot him a side-eyed glance. "For certain values of 'okay'."

She knew.

"He's still here? Oleg didn't send him back to Moscow?"

"He's an U.N.C.L.E. agent now. Of course Oleg didn't send him to Russia. I took him to a safehouse."

Napoleon leaned his head back against the headrest, releasing a slow sigh. That was good. He wasn't sure that Illya would ever want to see him again, but at least he'd be here. Waverly was far more benevolent a handler than Oleg would ever be. He made a mental note to talk to Waverly, see if there was some way they could extricate Illya from under the thumb of the KGB. Despite his mild-mannered mien, the man was cunning as a fox. They'd be able to work something out.

"What about you, are you okay?" Gaby's voice had softened.

Apart from being forced to flog his partner? Apart from knowing that he had destroyed any chance he'd ever had of being with Illya? "Me? I'm just peachy. So how did you even find —" He stopped. Stupid question, this suit had lain in the bottom of his desk for months, of course Illya had bugged it. He changed his question. "Seriously, how is he?"

"You'll see for yourself soon."

Napoleon gaped. "You're taking me to him?"

"He asked for you."

Napoleon's heart thudded. Illya wanted to see him. He might want to murder Napoleon on sight, but at least he wanted to see him.

"Should I be drawing up a new will and testament?"

"As pessimistic as ever, I see."

"I haven't exactly been given any incentive to think otherwise," he pointed out, just as Gaby pulled to a stop in front of a door. A very familiar door.

"You said Illya was in a safehouse!"

" _Safe house,_ " she said, drawing out the pause between the words. "Your flat's secure. Isn't it?"

"Not as secure as I thought, if you two broke in. What happened to the rule about agents not knowing the addresses of other agents?"

Gaby shrugged. "Rule's changed."

"Waverly won't like this."

"You leave Waverly to me," she said grimly, and Napoleon had a feeling their boss was about to regret having left her to fret all by herself for three days.

He swung his legs out of the car, still a little shell-shocked at the thought that Illya was here. He was safe. He was _in Napoleon's apartment_.

"You know, I thought you'd given a false address to U.N.C.L.E. at first," Gaby said.

He had thought about it, before concluding that Waverly would have wormed out the truth in any case. A gesture of good faith. Waverly had returned the gesture by never using the information against him. Not until now, anyway.

Napoleon looked out at the slightly shabby door adorning the decidedly working-class apartment building, then back at Gaby. "Why, where did you think I would live?"

"I thought...Mayfair, maybe. Near Savile Row. Or in Bloomsbury, with all the other artists."

"War profiteer," Napoleon reminded her. "Tiny difference."

Gaby rolled her eyes and plowed on. "But I knew it was the right place when we walked in and found ourselves standing in an active crime scene."

Napoleon huffed his first laugh of the day...of the month, it felt like.

"I never would have guessed that you'd live in a place like this."

"That was the general idea." Hopefully every enemy he'd ever made in his career thought the same way.

A hand pushed hard against his back and he hurriedly slid out of the car before he landed on his ass. "Hey!"

"Stop stalling, Solo." Gaby jerked her head towards the building. "Go to Illya."

Napoleon resisted the urge to wring his hands. "But what do I even say to him?" What _could_ you say to the guy you'd just ripped the skin off of, hours earlier?

"Solo. Just tell him the truth."

Easy for her to say. "Honesty doesn't exactly come naturally to me."

"You'll be fine. Oh! Before you go." Gaby reached into the back seat and retrieved a paper bag. She held it out through the open window.

Napoleon took it. "What's this?"

"Ointment for Illya's back, courtesy of Doctor Kaur. To reduce scarring, she said."

"Bit late for that," Napoleon said heavily.

Gaby bit her lip. "She put something in there for you, too."

"Really," Napoleon said, peering into the bag with a skeptical eye. "Just how mad was that I escaped her clutches, anyway?"

"Actually, I think she was rather flattered that you were terrified enough of her to prepare an escape route ahead of time."

Napoleon shrugged. That wasn't entirely inaccurate.

"Are you just going to hang onto that door all night? Because it's getting drafty in here."

Napoleon reluctantly pried his hand off the frame. "Remember what I told you about funeral arrangements."

Gaby snorted. "Good luck, Solo," she said firmly, reaching over to wind the window closed. Napoleon watched her speed around the corner and out of sight, then turned to face the building. Not home, exactly, but possibly the closest thing he had to it.

And Illya was in there. Alone, this time. No pesky handlers in the way. Just the two of them.

Napoleon took a deep breath, and extracted the lockpick from his tie.

He made his customary security sweep as he clambered up the stairs, forgoing the somewhat unreliable elevator, and nearly had a heart attack when he got to his own door and saw that his intruder detectors had been disturbed.

Of course, Illya and Gaby had to have gotten inside somehow. He sternly instructed himself to pull himself together. He'd spent the evening fearing that Illya might have been exiled to Siberia because of him, ruing that he'd never get the chance to tell Illya how he felt. He should be elated for this reprieve.

Who was he kidding. He was fucking _terrified_.

He knelt down and gently jiggered the lock until the door slid silently open. He took a deep breath and stepped inside.

It was utterly dark, and quiet as a tomb. That...wasn't good. Images of Illya bleeding out into his Isfahani carpet sprang to mind, and he hurriedly grabbed a flashlight out of a convenient drawer and swung it around. No Illya.

Maybe he was waiting behind another door to pounce on Napoleon, ready to take his revenge. Napoleon resolved that he wouldn't fight back if he did. He deserved whatever Illya decided to give him.

But first, he had to make sure Illya was safe.

The door to his bedroom was ajar. He braced himself and swung it open.

Nobody attacked.

Moonlight was streaming in through an uncurtained window, casting its dim rays onto the vast four-poster bed and the still figure smack in the middle of it. Napoleon flipped off his flashlight, and tiptoed nearer.

Illya was lying on his front, one arm flopped under the pillow, the other down by his side under the blanket. His shoulders rose and fell rhythmically, silently. The light of the half-moon bathed his features in a silvery glow, picking out every impossibly long eyelash. His hair gleamed with moisture.

Illya had been in his shower. And now he was in his _bed_. Napoleon's heart was turning tiny somersaults at the thought.

For a long while, Napoleon just watched him, reveling in his ability to do just that. Under ordinary circumstances, Illya would never sleep with someone standing over him. Napoleon had once drunkenly stumbled into Illya's room at four in the morning and found himself staring down the barrel of the Makarov Illya always kept on his person.

But not tonight. Tonight Illya simply slumbered on, which was testament to just how exhausted he must be. And Napoleon wasn't about to disturb his sleep for all the stolen art in this apartment...not for all the art in the _world_.

He slipped out of the room as quietly as he'd come in, and left Illya to his beauty rest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Blyad'_ : "fuck" in Russian (lit. "whore").
> 
>  _...including right here in the U.K. ..._ : The Sexual Offences Act that decriminalised private homosexual acts between men over 21 wasn't passed until 1967, four years after this fic takes place. Prior to that, chemical castration with oestrogen was a possible "treatment" for such acts of "gross indecency".


End file.
